Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress ^o V*<< * i\Y <\ <> ° • » ^ ^ * • • • s-\ V 5. •.,*•' A° ^ http://www.archive.org/details/lessonsonobjects01mayo .0* '+* 0* • »%! ' ^% LESSONS ON OBJECTS, L. AND O. SEJ5MEV, THAMES DITTO V, SLRKKV. LESSONS ON OBJECTS; AS GIVEN TO CHILDREN BETWEEN THE AGES OF SIX AND EIGHT, IN A PESTALOZZIAN SCHOOL, &t dTSjcam, Surrey. " We daily call a great many things by their names, without ever inquiring into their nature and properties ; so that, in reality, it is only their names, and not the things themselves, with which we are acquainted." Aiken, >i-(> SIXTH EDITION PUBLISHED BY R. B. SEELEY, AND W. BURNSIDE AND SOLD BY L. AND G. SEELEY, FLEET STREET, LONDON. MDCCCXXXVII. PREFACE. Pestalozzi was peculiarly solicitous that the idea of his method of Education should not be confounded with the form it might assume. He felt, and strongly felt, the value, the power, and the truth of that idea ; and highly as he was dis- posed to appreciate the labours of his disciples in the practical application of it to the work of education ; still he saw that they were at best imperfect, incomplete embodyings of the grand and profound conceptions in which he might be said intellectually " to live and move and have his being." The continual appeal which he made from the imperfections of his practice, to the beauty and truth of his principles, contributed perhaps to attach to himself the character of a benevolent visionary, and to his system, the charge of impracticability. Much had been written, much had been said, yet little seemed to have been done; for even his own school, miserably conducted in many respects, presented but a cloudy and distorted exhibition of his views. Hence the man of lofty mind and feeling heart quitted Yverdon with a sigh of VI PREFACE. regret: while the shallow reasoner and self-satis- fied routier casta smile of contempt on principles which he could not discover to be true, in the midst of the disorder that impeded and deformed their developement. Profoundly convinced of the truth of Pesta- lozzi's views, and warned against his errors by long actual observation of their consequences, the Writer of these prefatory remarks determined to attempt the introduction of his method into England, religiously preserving the Idea, but adapting the Form to those circumstances in which he might be placed. He considered that the most effectual mode of accomplishing this end was to devote himself to the formation and conduct of a school, in which the arrangement and practical application of those principles might be made. To exhibit the system in operation, to elaborate by means of experiments continually repeated, a course of instruction ; and above all, to prepare materials for an appeal to actual results, seemed to him a far more useful and effectual, though less rapid or brilliant process, than that of dragging it before reluctant audiences at public meetings or of advocating its merits in the periodical publications of the day. He was content that it should be buried in oblivion for a while, assured that if it really possessed the life of truth, it would in due time spring up with renovated vigour. That time seems to have arrived. Attention to this subject is PREFACE. Vll revived. Schools, professing to be conducted on Pestalozzian principles, are increasing in number ; and publications issue from the press, which point out, with more or less success, the manner of applying them to different branches of instruction. Under these encouraging cir- cumstances, it is proposed to publish, from time to time, a number of little treatises of a strictly practical nature, embodying in a familiar manner the principles of Pestalozzi. They will be the result of many years' experience — the corrected and recorrected editions of lessons actually given by different individuals. They may want some of that ideal beauty discernible in works pro- duced by an ingenious imagination in the closet, but they will possess, on the other hand, the solid advantage of ascertained practicability and demonstrated usefulness. It has been thought desirable to commence the series with a course of Lessons on Objects. It is a field hitherto little, if at all cultivated. The distinguishing principles of the Pestalozzian system are strikingly exemplified in it. The instruction given in Infants' Schools would be improved by the introduction of a similar plan : and the early education of the nursery receive a new and interesting feature. This mode of instruction was suggested to the mind of Pestalozzi by the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed at Stantz. The brutalized state into which the poor children confided to V1I1 PREFACE. his care had fallen, rendered it absolutely neces- sary to find some new mode of interesting their minds, and calling out their dormant faculties. Nature was the only book with which they were conversant, and their first lessons were consequently drawn from its pages. Experience and judgment retained what necessity first im- posed. The subjects ordinarily presented to the youthful mind appeared too remote from that knowledge which the child acquires without regular instruction, and generally to be taught in too abstract a manner. It was proposed to bring education more into contact with the child's own experience and observation, and to find in him the first link in the chain of his in- struction. In the execution of this plan a series of engravings was provided, representing those objects which are familiar to children; and the lessons consisted in naming their parts, describ- ing their structure and use. One day, however, the Master having presented to his class the engraving of a ladder, a lively little boy ex- claimed, "but there is a real ladder in the court-yard : why not talk about it rather than the picture ! " " The engraving is here, " said the master, " and it is more convenient to talk about what is before your eyes than to go into the court-yard to talk about the other." The boy's observation, thus eluded, was for that time disregarded. Soon after, the engraving of a window, formed the subject of examination : PREFACE. IX " but why," exclaimed the same little objector, " why talk of this picture of a window, when there is a real window in the room, and there is no need to go into the court-yard for it ? " Again the remark was silenced, but in the evening both circumstances were mentioned to Pestalozzi. " The boy is right," said he, " the reality is better than the counterfeit ; put away the engravings, and let the class be instructed by means of real objects." The plan was adopted ; but many inconveniences resulted from the arrangement. The subjects which the room itself, the building, the premises presented, were soon exhausted, or thought to be so ; the pupils were taken into the fields ; the weather was an occasional hindrance, the variety of objects presented out of doors distracted the attention of the pupils, and though much interest was at first excited, still, as there was no sensible progress, no perceivable end, it diminished rather than increased in force. It was thought too, that exercises so miscellaneous in their character, so devoid of systematic arrangement, were essen- tially defective as means of intellectual develope- ment. Upon these grounds the Miscellaneous Object Lessons were abandoned, and the Master who had conducted the class substituted a course on the parts and functions of the bodily frame. These are contained in the Manual des Meres, a work presenting valuable hints for early education, mixed with much that is insufferably X PREFACE. tedious. At the period when the writer of these observations was in the Institution at Yverdon, instruction on Objects had fallen into disuse ; but having heard this history from the individual who had formerly given it, he felt strongly con- vinced that a mode might be adopted, by which its advantages would be secured, and its con- tingent inconveniences avoided. Having com- municated this impression to his sister, with a general notion of the plan, he has left the execution of the details to her, and the result of her labours is the Exercises, now for the first time presented to the public. The desultory character attaching to them in their original form is corrected, by making a previous selection of subjects, and presenting them in the class-room. As they are intended to be preparatory to instruction in natural history, they gradually assume a more scientific character, and thus a feeling of progress is sustained in the pupil's mind. It has been found, indeed, by long- experience, that no lessons produce more con- tinued interest, or more enlarge the minds of children, than those on Objects. C. MAYO. CONTENTS. FIRST SERIES. PAGE Introductory Remarks * 1 Lesson 1 . Glass 5 2. Indian Rubber 9 3. Leather 9 4. Loaf Sugar ■- 10 5. A piece of Gum Arabic 11 6. Sponge , 12 7. Wool 13 8. Water 13 9. A piece of Wax 15 10. Camphor 15 11. Bread 16 12. Sealing Wax 17 13. Whalebone 18 14. Ginger 19 15. Blotting Paper 19 16. A piece Willow 20 17. Milk 21 18. Rice . . 21 19. Salt 22 20. A Horn 23 Xll CONTENTS. PAGE Lesson 21 . Ivory 23 22. Chalk 24 23. A Piece of the Bark of the Oak Tree 25 SECOND SERIES. Introductory Remarks 2G Lesson 1. A Pin 27 2. A Cube of Wood 28 3. An Uncut Lead Pencil 29 4. A Pen 30 5. A Wax Candle 31 6. A Chair 32 7. A Book 33 8. An Egg 35 9. A Thimble 36 10. A Penknife 36 11. A Key 37 12. A Cup 38 , 13. A Coffee Berry 39 14. A Pair of Scissors 40 THIRD SERIES. Introductory Remarks 41 Lesson 1. A Quill 42 l'. A Halfpenny 44 3. Mustard Seed 46 1 . An Apple 47 CONTENTS. Xlll PAGE Lesson 5. Glass of a Watch 49 6. Brown Sugar 50 7. An Acorn 51 8. A Piece of Honey-Comb 52 9. Refined Sugar 53 10. A Cork 54 1 1 . Glue 55 12. Packthread 56 13. Honey 56 14. Butter-cup 57 15. Lady-Bird 58 16. An Oyster 59 17. AFirCone 61 18. Fur 26 19. A Laurel Leaf 63 20. A Needle 64 21. A Stone 65 FOURTH SERIES. ON SPICES. Introductory Remarks 67 Lesson 1 . Pepper 68 2. Nutmeg 70 3. Mace '. 72 4- Cinnamon 74 5. Ginger 76 6. Allspice 77 7. A Clove 78 Xiv CONTENTS. ON LIQUIDS. PAGE Lesson 8. Water 82 9. Oil 85 10. Beer 86 1 1 . Foreign "White Wine 87 12. Vinegar 88 13. Ink 89 14. Milk 90 FIFTH SERIES. Introductory Remarks 93 Lesson 1 . Camphor 94 2. Wax Candle 95 3. Putty 95 4. Shell Lac 96 5. Butter , 97 6. Cheese 97 7. Horn 98 8. Honey 99 9. Starch 99 10. Saffron 100 1 1 . Court Plaster 101 12. Glue 102 13. Tamarinds 103 1 4 . Indian Rubber, or Gum Elastic 104 15. Foreign Currants 105 16. Cork 106 CONTENTS. XV PAGE Lesson 1 . Leather 107 18. Sponge 108 19. Coffee 109 20. Tea 109 21. Rice Ill 22. Sago 112 23. The Cocoa Nut 113 24. Bread 115 25. Sugar 116 26. Whalebone 117 27. Glass 118 28. Parchment 120 29. Paper 121 30. Wool. e . . 124 31. Cotton 125 32. Flax 126 33. Hemp 128 34. Silk 129 35. Felt 130 36. Porcelain 132 ON METALS. Introductory Remarks 134 Lesson 37. Gold , 134 38. Silver 139 39. Quicksilver, or Mercury ....„, 143 40. Lead 147 41. Copper 151 42. Iron 156 XVI CONTENTS. PAGE Lesson 43. Tin 162 44. Comparison of Metals 165 45. On Metals in general 166 Questions on the Metals 168 ON EARTHS. Lesson 46. Lime 173 47. Silica 178 48. Alumine, or Argil 180 Questions on the Earths 183 Lesson 49. Coal 186 50. Granite 189 51. Salt 190 52. Slate 194 53. Coral 196 ON THE SENSES. Lesson 54. Introductory Remarks 198 55. Feeling or Touch 200 56. Sight 203 57. Hearing 204 58. Smell 206 59. Taste 207 VOCABULARY 209 LESSONS ON OBJECTS FIRST SERIES. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. To lead children to observe with attention the objects which surround them, and then to describe with accuracy the impressions they convey, appears to be the first step in the business of education. The ceaseless activity of the perceptive faculties, which characterizes the period of childhood, shews that this is the point at which instruction would most naturally commence. It gives animation to the dull, and precision to the lively ; it promotes that clearness of ap- prehension which is the solid basis of after- attainment, — without which, our judgments are unsound, and our reasonings inconclusive. As the sphere of observation is enlarged, and the pages of history, or the fields of science, are explored, the mind accustomed to accurate in- B 2 FIRST SERIES. vestigation will not rest content with less than satisfactory evidence, either in morals or in science. The present work consists of five series of lessons, each of which increases in difficulty as the pupil advances. The order observed in them is the result, of some experience, and of several trials, which have produced a strong conviction of the importance and value of a methodical arrangement, and of a very gradual progression. It is therefore recommended that no step in the course should be altogether omitted, though the age and talents of the children must regulate the time bestowed on each. The first series presents a selection of miscel- laneous objects, every one possessing some dis- tinguishing quality ; yet so arranged as to have an obvious connection with what has preceded. The children should be practised in remarking those qualities observable by the simple opera- tion of the external senses, deferring till a more advanced period, those requiring a higher exer- cise of mind. It is very important that in any course of instruction, some definite object should be proposed, and that every step should have a 1 indency towards the end in view. Thus, in the scries under consideration, the developement of the perceptive faculties is aimed at, and each is called into action for the attainment of the object. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 3 One lesson is drawn out fully as a specimen of the manner in which the others should be given. It would have extended the volume to an unnecessary length, and filled it with needless repetitions, had each been made out with equal minuteness. Much information might have been thrown into the preliminary set : but as the end proposed was rather to excite the mental powers to activity, than to provide them with know- ledge, it has been purposely avoided. It may perhaps be necessary to guard against the error of expecting, in a work like the pre- sent, anything more than hints as to the mode of arranging and imparting knowledge. The teacher must be previously well-informed, in order to meet the inquiries which the active minds of children continually suggest. Their questions will generally point out the best mode of treating a subject, or of leading them to the discovery of any truth. Precise unvarying rules may be laid down for mechanical operations ; but mind alone can act upon mind, and bring it into vigorous exercise : and all instruction must be dry and uninteresting, which has not undergone some modification from the person by whom it is communicated. There are several faults into which teachers are likely to fall ; one is that of telling too much to their pupils. They may receive the information with pleasure, and appear to profit by it ; but great evil arises from such a mode of instruction : their minds remain almost b 2 4 FIRST SERIES. passive, and they acquire a habit of receiving- impressions from others, at a time when they ought to be gaining mental power by the exertion of their own faculties. Another mistake is that of giving a term, before the pupil has felt his want of it. When the idea of any quality has been formed in his mind, without his being able to express it, the name given under such circumstances fixes it on the memory : — thus, when a child observes that whalebone, after having being bent, returns to its original position, he may be told that this property which he has discovered is called elastic. 1 The following pages were written originally with no view to publication, but merely for the use of the school in which they were given ; and the information they contain was drawn from various sources. No memorandum being made at the time, it would now be impossible to assign each passage to its respective author, though it is probable that those acquainted with the popular works on the subjects here treated of, may detect, in some places, almost literal quotations. 1 The writer desires particularly to enforce this remark, having in one or two instances seen the lessons altogether misused. — Thus the qualities were told, and the explanation of them given, instead of the object being presented to the children, that they might make their own observations upon it, and require from the teacher terms for qualities clearly discerned, though unknown by name. GLASS. LESSOR I. GLASS. Glass has been selected as the first substance to be presented to the children, because the qualities which characterize it are quite obvious to the senses. The pupils should be arranged before a black board or slate, upon which the result of their observations should be written. The utility of having the lesson presented to the eyes of each child, with the power of thus recalling attention to what has occurred, will very soon be appreciated by the instructor. The glass should be passed round the party to be examined by each individual. 1 Teacher. What is this which I hold in my hand ? Children. A piece of glass. Teacher. Can you spell the word glass ? (The teacher then writes the word " glass " upon the slate, which is thus presented to the whole class as the subject of the lesson.) You 1 By this means, each individual in the class is called upon to exercise his own powers on the object presented ; the subsequent questions of the teacher tend only to draw out the ideas of the children, and to correct them if wrong. 6 FIRST SERIES. — LESSON I. have all examined this glass ; what do you observe? "What can you say that it is ? 1 Children. It is bright. Teacher. (Teacher having written the word " qualities,' 7 writes under it — It is bright.) Take it in your hand and feel ~ it. Children. It is cold. (Writtenon the board under the former quality.) Teacher. Feel it again, and compare it with the piece of sponge that is tied to your slate, and then tell me what you perceive in the glass. 3 Children. It is smooth — it is hard. Teacher. What other glass is there in the room ? Children. The windows. Teacher. Look out at the window and tell me what you see. Children. We see the garden. 1 This question is put instead of asking, " What are its qualities?" because the children would not, at first, in all probability, understand the meaning of the term ; its frequent application, however, to the answers to this question, will shortly familiarize them to it, and teach them its meaning. 3 The art of the teacher is to put such questions as may lead successively to the exercise of the different senses. 3 The object of the teacher here is to lead the pupil to the observation of the quality smooth, and he does so by making him contrast it with the opposite quality in another substance ; a mode of suggestion, of which frequent use may be made. GLASS. 7 Teacher. (Closes the shutter.) Look out again, and tell what you observe. Children. We cannot see anything-. Teacher. Why cannot you see anything ? Children. We cannot see through the shutters. Teacher. W^hat difference do you observe between the shutters and the glass ? Children. We cannot see through the shutters, but we can through the glass. Teacher. Can you tell me any word that will express this quality which you observe in the glass? Children. No. Teacher. I will tell you then ; pay atten- tion, that you may recollect it. It is transpa- rent. 1 What shall you now understand when I tell you that a substance is transparent ? Children. That you can see through it. Teacher. You are right. 2 Try and recol- lect something that is transparent. 1 The fact of the glass being transparent is so familiar to the children, that they will probably not observe it till its great use in consequence of that quality brings it forcibly before their minds. They then feel the want of a term to express the idea thus formed, and the teacher gives them the name, as a sign for it, and in order to impress it upon their minds. To ascertain whether they have rightly com- prehended the meaning of the word, they are called upon to give examples of its application. 2 It is but too common a practice to call a child good because he gives a right answer, thus confounding intel- lectual truth and moral virtue. 8 FIRST SERIES. — LESSON I. Children. Water. Teacher. If I were to let this glass fall, or you were to throw a ball at the window, what would be the consequence? Children. The glass would be broken. It is brittle. Teacher. If I used the shutter in the same manner, what would be the consequence ? Children. It would not break. * Teacher. If I gave it a heavy blow, with a very hard substance, what would happen ? Children. It would then break. Teacher. Would you therefore call the wood brittle ? Children. JNo. Teacher. What substances, then, do you call brittle? Children. Those which are easily broken. These are probably as many qualities as would occur to children at their first attempt : they should be arranged on the slate, and thus form an exercise in spelling. They should then be effaced ; and if the pupils are able to write, they may endeavour to remember the lesson, and put it down on their slates. INDIAN RUBBER. — LEATHER. 9 LESSON II. INDIAN RUBBER. This substance has been chosen that the class may observe the qualities, opaque, elastic, in- flammable. The first would be made clear to them by contrasting the Indian Rubber with the Glass of the preceding lesson ; the second by stretching it, and allowing it to resume its for- mer shape ; the third, by setting it on fire. Qualities of Indian Rubber. It is opaque, elastic, inflammable, black, tough, smooth. Uses. — To rub out pencil-marks ; to make balls, LESSON III. LEATHER. Ideas to be developed by the examination of this substance, flexible, odorous, durable. 10 FIRST SERIES. — LESSON IV. Qualities of Leather. It is flexible, odorous, water-proof, tough, smooth, durable, opaque. Uses. — For shoes ; gloves ; reins ; saddles ; portmanteaus; for binding books. LESSON IV. LOAF SUGAR. Ideas to be developed by this lesson, soluble, fusible, sparkling. Qualities of Loaf Sugar. It is soluble, fusible. l 1 The difference between fusibility and solubility may be rendered obvious to the children by dissolving one piece of sugar in water, and holding another over the candle. It is better that such simple experiments should be performed in their presence, than that a mere description of the operation should be given. A PIECE OF GUM ARABIC. 11 It is brittle, hard. sweet. white. sparkling. solid. opaque. Use. — To sweeten our food. LESSON V. A PIECE OF GUM ARABIC. Ideas to be developed by this lesson, semi- transparent, adhesive. Qualities of Gum Arabic. It is hard, bright, yellow. semi-transparent, soluble in w T ater. adhesive when melted, solid. Use. — To unite light and thin substances. 12 FIRST SERIES. — LESSON VI. LESSON VI. SPONGE. Ideas to be developed by this lesson, -porous. absorbent* Qualities of Sponge. It is porous. absorbent. 1 soft, tough, opaque, elastic, dull, flexible, light brown. Use. — For washing. 1 The quality of absorbing will be made obvious to the class, by shewing that the sponge sucks up any liquid. It possesses this quality in consequence of its being full of pores. The use to •which an object is applied, often leads to the observation of the quality upon which the use is dependent. WOOL.— WATER. 13 LESSON VII. WOOL. Qualities of wool. It is soft. absorbent. white. flexible. elastic. tough. durable. opaque. dry. light. Uses. — For making cloth ; flannels ; blankets ; carpets ; stockings ; &c. LESSON VIII. WATER. Ideas to be developed by this lesson, liquid, reflective, glassy, tasteless, inodorous. 14 FIRST SERIES.— LESSON VIII. Qualities of Water. It is liquid, reflective. glassy. colourless. inodorous. 1 tasteless, transparent, heavy, bright, wholesome, purifying. Uses. — To cleanse ; to fertilize ; to drink ; for culinary purposes. 1 In order to direct the attention of the class to the force of the syllables less and in, the teacher would ask, — What is meant by tasteZess ? Having no taste. What is meant by inodorous ? Having no odour. In what" are these words alike ? They both tell us what the substance is not. They mark then the absence of a quality. What syllables of the words mark this absence of the quality ? less and in. Give examples of words in which less and in are so used. WAX. — CAMPHOR. 15 LESSON IX. A PIECE OF WAX. This substance is here introduced, because it possesses many of the qualities already remarked. Qualities of Wax, It is solid, opaque, dull, tough, fusible, sticky, yellowish, hard, odorous, smooth. Use. — To make candies and tapers. LESSON X, CAMPHOR. Ideas to be developed by this lesson, aromatic, friable, volatile. 16 FIRST SERIES. — LESSON XI. Qualities of Camphor. It is aromatic. easily crumbling, or friable. white. semi-transparent. bright. soluble in spirits. hard. solid. very inflammable. medicinal. light. volatile. Uses. — For medicine; to prevent infection; to preserve cabinets from small insects. LESSON XI. BREAD. Ideas to be developed by this lesson, edible, wholesome, nutritious. Qualities of Bread. It is porous, absorbent, opaque, solid, wholesome. SEALING WAX. 17 It is nutritious, edible. The crum is yellowish white, soft when new. moist. The crust is hard, brittle, brown. Use — To nourish. LESSON XII. SEALING WAX. Idea to be developed by this lesson, impressible. Qualities of Sealing Wax. It is hard, bright, brittle, fusible, opaque. soluble in spirits, light, solid, smooth, coloured. l 1 The colour may be determined by the specimen pre- sented. Itt FIRST SERIES. — LESSON XIII. It is inflammable, odorous. When fused it is soft. impressible, adhesive. Use. — To seal letters. LESSON XIII. WHALEBONE. Idea to be developed by this lesson, fibrous. Qualities of Whalebone. It is elastic. 1 durable, hard, fibrous, opaque, bright. stiff. Uses. — As a stirlner ; for whips, bludgeons, &c. 1 The class should he led to compare the elasticity oi Whalebone, with that of Indian Rubber, and to observe the difference GINGER. — BLOTTING PAPER. 19 LESSON XIV. GINGER. Idea to be developed by this lesson, pungent. Qualities of Ginger, It is pungent, dull, hard, dry. fibrous, aromatic, tough, opaque, wholesome, medicinal, jagged, light brown. Uses.— To flavour food : for medicine. LESSON XV. BLOTTING PAPER. Idea to be developed by this lesson, pinkish, C 2 20 FIRST SERIES. — LESSON XVI. Ish added to words expressive of" quality, gene- rally denotes the presence of the quality, but in a moderate degree. Qualities of Blotting Paper. It is absorbent, porous, soft, thin, pinkish, pliable, dull. inflammable, easily torn. Use. — To suck up superfluous ink. LESSON XVI. A PIECE OF WILLOW. Qualities of Willow. It is hard. inflammable. fibrous. dull. opaque. solid. elastic. MILK RICE. 21 It is flexible, white, odorous. LESSON XVII. MILK. Qualities of Milk. It is white, fluid, liquid, opaque, soft. wholesome, greasy. nutritious, sweet. Uses.— To make cheese ; butter ; puddings ; to drink. LESSON XVIII. RICE. Qualities of Rice. It is white, hard. ! FIRST SERIES. — LESSON XIX. It is opaque, smooth, stiff, bright, solid, porous, absorbent, wholesome, nutritious. Use. — To nourish. LESSON XIX. SALT. Ideas to be developed by this lesson, granu- lans, saline, sapid. Qualities of Salt. It is white, sparkling, granulous. salt, or saline, hard, opaque, soluble, fusible, sapid, or has taste. Uses. — To flavour food; to preserve from putrefaction; to manure land. HORN.— IVORY. 23 LESSON XX. A HORN. Qualities of a Horn, It is hard, dull, uneven, hollow. odorous when burnt. tapering 1 , opaque, stiff. yellowish brown, fibrous. Uses. — To make combs ; glue ; lanterns handles to knives and forks. LESSON XXI. IVORY, Qualities of Ivory. It is hard, white. 24 FIRST SERIES.— LESSON XXII. Jt is smooth, bright, opaque, solid, durable. LESSON XXII. CHALK. Idea to be developed by this lesson, effervescent."- Q u all ties of Ch a Ik . It is white, friable. effervescent in acids, opaque. dull. hard, solid. dry. 1 This quality may be made apparent to the children by putting the chalk in vinegar. BARK. 25 LESSON XXIII. PIECE OF THE BARK OF THE OAK TREE. Qualities of Bark. It is brown, rugged, opaque, dry. inflammable, stiff, solid, durable, fibrous, dull. astringent. 1 inside smooth. Uses. — To guard the tree from injury ; for tanning. 1 The children may be made to understand the quantity of astringency, by drawing their attention to the contrac- ing effect produced by eating a sloe. SECOND SERIES. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. In this series the children should be much exercised upon the qualities already remarked? but these should now be presented to them in other objects. This repetition combines, with the advantage of fixing the knowledge acquired, that of enabling them to form the abstract idea of the quality. Having had all their senses brought into action, they may be led to determine the sense by the exercise of which any particular property was observed : thus, ' How did you find out that glass was transparent ? ' ' By my eyes.* ' What can you do with your eyes ? ' ' See.' * Seeing is called a sense.' * Can you obtain an idea of a quality except by the sense of sight ? ' 'Will your sight discover to you that a rose is odorous ? ' ' How would you ascertain this quality ? ' ' By what sense ? ' ' By smell- ing.' ' By the sense of smell.' By similar questions the class will gain a clear conception of the several sejises and their operations. They may next proceed to the observation of the A PIN. 27 organs of sense. Thus * By what natural instrument are you able to see, hear?' &c. ' By eyes, ears/ &c. Any natural instrument by which something is performed, is called an organ. * What are the eyes ? 9 ' Organs/ 1 Organs of what sense ? ' ' Organs of sight/ &c It will be a useful exercise for the children to classify the various qualities, which they have observed in objects under the heads of the different senses by which they are discerned. They will soon perceive that some may be dis- covered by either of two senses; for example, fluid, solid, rough, and the varieties of form which may be ascertained either by sight or feeling ; these should constitute another division. Thus trained to arrange their ideas, children will acquire a great readiness in making use of their knowledge, and a facility in producing new combinations. In this series, they may also be practised in distinguishing and naming the parts of objects. LESSON I. A PIN. A pin has been chosen for the first lesson, because the parts are few, clearly marked, and simple. 28 SECOND SERIES. — LESSON II. Parts. Qualities. The head. It is hard, shank. opaque, point. white. bright, solid- useful, smooth. cold. The head is round. The point is sharp. The shank is straight, taper. Uses.— To keep together for a time parts of dress, &c. LESSON II. A CUBE OF WOOD. The cube will convey to the children a good idea of a surface; they will observe that the outside is divided into several parts, and may- learn that the boundaries of a solid are called surfaces. AN UNCUT LEAD PENCIL. 29 Parts. Qualities. surfaces. It is hard. edges. light. corners. solid. brown. smooth. dull. inflammable opaque. The surfaces i are flat. square. The edges are straight. The corners are sharp. LESSON III. v AN UNCUT LEAD PENCIL. From this object the children may become acquainted with the cylinder, for they will not fail to observe that the two ends are flat, and that the other surface is curved. Parts. Qualities. The surfaces. It is hard ends. odorous, exterior or outside. long. 30 SECOND SERIES. — LESSON IV. interior or inside. solid. middle. opaque. lead. inflammable, wood. dry. brown. veined. One side is curved The ends are flat. circular. The form is cylindrical. The lead is grey. brittle. friable. bright. Uses. — For writing ; drawing, &c. Let the children point out on what occasion a pencil i* preferable to a pen, and vice versa. LESSON IV. A PEN. A pen presents many different parts; the qualities of some are also opposite to the quali- t others. A WAX CANDLE. 31 Parts. Qualities. The quill, shaft. The quill is transparent, cylindrical. feather. hollow. laminae. bright. pith. hard. nib. elastic. split. The shoulders, surfaces. The shaft yellowish, horny, is opaque. skin. angular. groove. solid. inside. white. outside. stiff, hard. The pith grooved, is white, spongy, porous, elastic, soft. LESSON V. A l WAX CANDLE. This object recalls the idea of the cylinder, formed in a previous lesson, and presents the peculiar parts of the candle itself. 32 SECOND SERIES — LESSON VI. Parts. Qualities. The wick. It is cylindrical. wax. hard. surfaces. opaque. ends. yellowish white, edges. The wax is sticky. top. fusible. bottom . The wick is inflammable. middle. tough. inside. white. outside. fibrous, flexible. Use. — To give light. LESSON VI. A CHAIR. This, and several of the succeeding lessons, are chosen on account of the great variety of the parts of the objects. Parts. The back, front, seat, top. A CHAIR. — A BOOK. 33 The bottom, frame, legs, straw, edges. upper part of the seat, under part of the seat. bars, surfaces, corners. It is obvious that the qualities are not named, because they would depend upon the kind of chair chosen for the lesson. It is a useful exercise to compare the relative proportions and situations of the different parts of an object. Thus, in the chair, the depth of the seat is about one-half the height of the chair ; the legs are rather shorter than the back ; the seat is narrower at the back than the front, &c. The legs are perpendicular, the seat hori- zontal, the back slanting, the bars horizontal and parallel. LESSON VII. A BOOK. Paris. The outside. D 34 SECOND SERIES. — LESSON VII. The inside, edges, corners, binding, paper, back, sides, top. bottom, title-page, preface, introduction, contents, end. leaves, pages, margin, beginning, type, letters, numbers, stops, words, sentences, syllables, title, lettering, stitching, lines. AN EGG. 35 LESSON VIII. AN EGG. Parts. Qualities. The shell. It is oval. skin. white. white. hard. yolk. eatable. interior. nutritious. exterior, surface. opaque, dull. embryo, or The shell is brittle, future chicken. smooth. thin. translucent. The white is liquid when raw. solid when boiled semi-transparent, adhesive. sticky. insipid. The yolk is yellow, liquid. soft. opaque, odorous. sapid. D 2 36 SECOND SERIES. — LESSON IX. LESSON IX. A THIMBLE. Parts. Qualities. The inside. It is hollow outside. silver. top. bottom. punctured white. rim. border. punctures. bright, opaque, hard, curved. The inside is smooth. The outside is rough. Use. — To preserve the middle finger from being pricked in working. LESSON X. A PENKNIFE. Parts. Qualities. The handle The blade is steel. A PENKNIFE.— A KEY, 37 The blade. The blade is bright, plates. cold, grooves. hard, back of the handle. reflective, back of the blade. opaque. point, edge. brittle. The front edge is thin. notch, spring. sharp. The back edge is blunt. rivets. thick. pivot. The handle is hollow. heel. flat. Use. — To cut. The other qualities depend upon the kind of knife shown, LESSON XI. A KEY. Parts. Qualities. The ring, barrel, wards, grooves, edges. It is hard, steel, bright, cold, opaque. 38 SECOND SERIES. — LESSON XII. The surfaces. It is smooth, corners. stiff. liable to rust. Part of the barrel is hollow. The barrel is cylindrical. The ring is curved. Places locked up by a Key. — Doors, gates, boxes, desks, portmanteaus, trunks, portfolios, tea-chests, closets, drawers, cabinets, &c. LESSON XII. A CUP. Parts. Qualities. The bowl. It is hollow. handle. hard. upper rim. lower rim. bottom. curved, glossy, smooth. inside, outside. glazed, cold. edges, surfaces. brittle. thin. useful. semi-transparent The rim is circular. A COFFEE BERRY, 39 LESSON XIII. A COFFEE BERRY. Parts. Qualities. The surfaces. If roasted, it is brown. curved surfaces. hard. flat surface. crisp. groove. sapid. edge. aromatic, stimulating, agreeable to the taste, dull, solid. If un- roasted , dingy yellow, inodorous, disagreeable to the taste Use. — To make a beverage. 40 SECOND SERIES. — LESSON XIV. LESSON XIV. A PAIR OF SCISSARS. Parts. Qualities. The limbs. It is steel. bows. bright. blades. reflective, shanks. hard. rivets. opaque. pivot. cold. points. useful. surfaces. solid. The blades are pointed. One surface is flat. the other curved. The front edge sharp. the back blunt. The bows are curved. Uses. — The children should name the kind of materials which scissars will cut, and point out the different manner in which knives and scissars cut. THIRD SERIES. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. In this series the children may be led to the observation of qualities which cannot be dis- cerned merely by the outward senses. Thus by showing them at the same time wool and woollen cloth, and questioning them as to the difference of the two, they will readily form the ideas of natural and artificial. In this manner they may be led to remark the dis- tinction between foreign, and native, exotic and indigenous, animal, vegetable, mineral, &c. They may now be called upon to give an explanation of the terms they use, and assisted by the teacher, to trace their derivations. A few explanations, adapted to the capacities of chil- dren, are given at the end of the volume. 42 THIRD SERIES LESSON I. LESSON I. A QUILL. Ideas to be developed by this lesson — natural, artificial, animal, vegetable, animate, inanimate. A pen should be shown at the same time with the quill ; and the children being questioned as to what constitutes the essential difference between the two, will understand the terms natural and artificial. If some fruits or flowers be placed by the quill, their attention may be directed to the distinction between animal and vegetable substances. The com- parison of the quill with an insect, will elicit the ideas of animate and inanimate. Parts. Qualities. The quill. It is long. shaft. stiff. ends. useful. feather. natural. laminae. inanimate. inside. animalproduction outside. The barrel is transparent. edges. hard. groove. elastic. surfaces. bright. A QUILL. 43 The pith The barrel is yellowish, skin. cyl&dricaL . hollow, light. The shaft is feathered, white, stiff, hard, opaque, solid, angular, grooved. Children may be led to remark the difference which fire produces on animal and vegetable substances both in appearance and smell. The Teacher now requires the class to give an explanation in their own words, of the terms they have used : and also helps them to trace the derivation of words, and to mark the force of particular syllables. 1 Teacher. Give me examples of words of the same termination as, JJseful. Children. Careful, &c. Teacher. What is the force of the termi- nation ? Children. It expresses the quality in a great degree. 1 The radical or invariable part of the word is printed in Roman characters, the termination in Italics, 44 THIRD SERIES. — LESSON II. Teacher. What is the opposite of useful ? Children. Use less. Teacher. Give examples of words, of the same termination as use less. Teacher. From what is natural derived ? Children. Nature. Teacher. From what is ' inanimate ' derived ? Children. From in which has the sense of not, and animate. Teacher. Animate is derived from anim a, 1 a latin word, which signifies life. Transparent is derived from trans, through, and parens appearing. Give other words derived from par ens, appearing. Children. Apparent, Apparition. Teacher. From what is cylindr ical derived ? Children. From cylinder. Teacher. Cylinder is derived from the Greek kv'mvIc* (kylindo) i roll. LESSON II. A HALFPENNY. Ideas to be developed in this lesson — mineral, metallic. Parts. Qualities. The surfaces. It is round, edges. flat. 1 The derivations should be written upon the slate, and read over several times by the children. A HALFPENNY 4 e milling. It is mineral impression. metallic. image. opaque. superscription bright. reverse. copper. date. cold. reddish brown fusible. hard . odorous. artificial. 1 heavy. durable. uneven. Made from copper ore, which contains sulphur in union with copper ; the sulphur forced off by smelting. Stampt by a die which is caused to fall upon the coin with great violence. Remarks on Words. Mine ral, is derived from Mine. Metal lie, Metal. Fus ible, To fuse. Artific ial, Art e, by art. fac ere, to make. Dur able, Dur are, to last. 1 The class should be led to remark, that though the workmanship is artificial, the substance is natural. 46 THIRD SERIES. — LESSON III. Teacher. Do you know any other words derived from dur are ? Children. Duration, during, endure. LESSON III. MUSTARD SEED. Ideas to be developed by this lesson, indigen- ous, pulverable. Qualities. It is pungent, dull, yellow, opaque, hard, dry. pulverable. natural, indigenous, vegetable, spherical, solid, stimulating. AN APPLE. 47 Remarks on Words. Vxmgent, is derived from, Pung ere, to prick. Pulv er able Pulv is, dust. Indigen ous, Indigen, a native, or produced in a country. LESSON IV. AN APPLE. Parts. Qualities. The eye. core. It is spherical, bright. pips, peel, pulp, juice. odorous, coloured, opaque, natural. stalk. vegetable. surface, inside. hard. ontside. nice, solid. The eye pleasant, is dry. brown, shrivelled 48 THIRD SERIES. — LESSON IV. The pips are brown on the outside when ripe, white in the inside, pointed oval, hard, bright. The core is membranaceous, stiff, yellow, hard, semi-transparent. Remarks on Words. Spher ical, is derived from Sphere. Teacher. Give instances of similar termi- nations. Children. Cylindr ical, crit ical, con ical. Odor ons, is derived from odor, scent. Teacher. Give instances of similar termi- nations. Children. Indigen ous, nutritions. Vegetable, is derived from veget are, to grow- as a plant. Teacher. Name other words derived from this. Children. To vegetate, vegetation. Juicy, is derived from Juice. Teacher. Give some other instances in which the names of qualities are derived from those of substances in a similar manner. GLASS OF A WATCH. 49 Children. Stone, stony; milk, milk y -, water, water y. Semi-transparent, is derived from Semi, trans, through, and parens, ap pear ing. Teacher. What is the meaning of semi ? Children. Half. LESSON V. GLASS OF A WATCH. Ideas to be developed by this lesson, concave and convex. Parts. 1 Qualities. It is artificial, transparent, brittle, bright, thin, hard, clear, cold, curved, useful. 1 The children should be asked whether there are any parts to this object peculiar to it ; and as there are not, the consideration of the parts had better be omitted. E 50 THIRD SERIES.-— LESSON VI. The upper surface is convex. The under surface concave. The edge circular. Uses. — To preserve the hands of the watch from being injured, and to keep the works from dust. LESSON VI. BROWN SUGAR. Ideas to be developed by this lesson, foreign, imported. Qualities. It is brown, granulous. sweet, soluble, fusible, opaque, useful. vegetable substance, artificial, foreign, sticky, imported, moist. AN ACORN. 51 Use. — To sweeten our food. Obtained from the Sugar Cane, which is cultivated in the East and West Indies. Remarks on Words. Granul ous, is derived from Granul urn, a small grain. Import ed, port are, to carry, in, into. Export ed, Ex, out, and port are. Solu ble, Solv ere, to loosen, because the particles may be loosened from each other by liquids. LESSON VII. AN ACORN. Parts. Qualities. The cup. It is vegetable berry. inanimate, nut. natural. point of the nut. hard. scar. green. scales. opaque. inside. The nut is oval. outside. bright. surfaces. solid. E 2 52 THIRD SERIES. — LESSON VIII. The edges. The cup is dull. The inside is concave, smooth. The outside is rough. brownish, scaly. The edge is circular. LESSON VIII. A PIECE OF HONEYCOMB. Parts. Qualities. The cells. It is natural. divisions. animal production edges. light. base of cells. fusible. corners. sticky. dull. semi-transparent. yellowish. thin. compressible. brittle. The eel Is are hexagonal, regular. hollow. REFINED SUGAR. 53 LESSON IX, REFINED SUGAR. Ideas to be developed by this lesson are crys- talline, amorphous. Parts. Qualities. surface. It is white. edges. sweet. middle. crystals. grains. sparkling. crystalline. solid. pores. fusible, soluble. shapeless or amorphous hard. refined. nutritious. useful. friable. opaque, artificial. vegetable. brittle. 54 THIRD SERIES,— LESSON X. Brought from the East and West Indies in its raw state. Refined by sugar-bakers, and sold by grocers in loaves of a conical form. Remarks on Words. Crystal line, is derived from, Crystal. Amorph ous, a (a) not, po^ty 77. (morphe) shape. Nutri tious, nutri re, to nourish. LESSON X. A CORK. Ideas to be developed by this lesson, com- pressible, meagre to the touch. Parts. Qualities. The ends. It is light. surfaces. elastic. edged. compressible. middle. opaque. dry. meagre to the touch. light brown. solid. porous. smooth. GLUE. 55 It is cylindrical, dull. inflammable, vegetable. The form is artificial. The substance is natural. LESSON XI. GLUE. Qualities of Glue. It is translucent. mahogany brown, hard, bright, solid. animal substance, artificial. When melted it is tough. adhesive, sticky, elastic, tenacious. Remarks on Words. Ten acious, is derived from, Ten ax, holding. Adhes ive, , . ,'. ad, to ; and hasr ere, to stick, (perfect, haesi.) 56 THIRD SERIES. — LESSONS XII. XIII. LESSON XII. PACKTHREAD. Qualities of Packthread. It is dry. dull, twisted, flexible, tough, opaque, fibrous, artificial, durable, light brown, vegetable, inflammable, soft, slender, solid, rough. LESSON XIII. HONEY. Qualities of Honey. It is sweet. BUTTER-CUP. 57 It is fluid, thick, liquid, yellow, bright, sticky. vegetable substance, natural, nourishing, healing, opaque. LESSON XIV. BUTTER-CUP. Parts. Qualities, The petals. It is vegetable, margins or edges. inanimate. cup. concave. leafits of cup. natural. stamens. odorous. pistils. The petals are yellow. stalk. glossy in the inside, place of insertion. dull on the outside. inside. circular. outside. pointed at the place surfaces. of insertion. 58 THIRD SERIES.— LESSON XV, The petals are striped. opaque pliable. The leafits are greenish, thin. membranaceous, semi-transparent pointed. The stalk is green. grooved. angular. stiff. fibrous. LESSON XV. LADY- BIRD. Parts. Qualities. head. It is animate. eyes. natural. feelers or palpi. hemispherical horns or antenna?. The elytra are red. wings. spotted. wing cases or elytra. bright. thorax. hard. legs. brittle. body. opaque. back. stiff. !l AN OYSTER, 5£ jfThe spots. The outside is convex. surfaces. the inside is concave. margin. one margin straight. claws. the other curved. The wings are membranaceous pliable, thin. transparent, fragile. The body is oval, black. The legs are jointed. short. black. LESSON XVI. AN OYSTER. Par Qualities. ?he valves. I t is animal. hinge, outside. opaque, marine. inside. natural. margin. The valves are circular impressions, mollusca. hard, stiff. scales or laminae . pulvera 60 THIRD SERIES—LESSON XVI. The outside is rough. scaly or laminated, irregular, dull dingy brown, uneven. The inside is pearly, bright, smooth. slightly concave, irridescent. cold. The mollusca is soft. ' eatible. nutritious, cold, smooth, lubricious. Remarks on Words. Mar ine, is derived from, Mar e, sea. Lamin ated, Lamin a, a plate. Irid escent, Irid escere, to become like a rainbow. Lub ricious, Lub ricus, slippery. A FIR CONE. 61 LESSON XVII. A FIR CONE. Parts. Qualities. The scales. It is brown. seeds. top. place of insertion. fibres. opaque, hard, vegetable, natural. outside. conical. inside. tiled or imbricated. surfaces. inflammable. stalk. odorous. The scales are rigid. dull. The outside is lig h thrown. pointed at the top. rough. irregularly pyramid- ical. The inside of scales is chesnut-colour. shaded. keeled. 62 THIRD SERIES. — LESSON XVIII. Remarks on Words. Irnbric ated is derived from, Imbric are, toj cover with tiles. 1 I LESSON XVIII. FUR. Parts. Qualities.. The skin. It is animal. hair. hairy. surface. inanimat< points of hair. The hairs are flexible. slender. soft. tubular. straight. pointed. The skin is stiff. The colour and other peculiarities, to be decided by the specimen presented. A LAUREL LEAF. 63 LESSON XIX. A LAUREL LEAF, Parts. Qualities, The upper surface under surface. edge or margin, point or termination. veins. middle rib. base, stalk. It is oval, smooth, pointed, vegetable, odorous, opaque, bitter, stiff, long. The rib is straight. raised, or keeled on the under side. grooved on the upper side, The veins are curved. The margin is curved. slightly toothed, The upper surface is bright. The under surface is dull. 64 THIRD SERIES.— LESSON XX. LESSON XX. A NEEDLE. Parts. Qualities. The eye. It is a mineral. shank. metallic. point. middle. top. artificial, opaque, bright, cold. * taper. pointed. slender V- useful. fusible. grey or steel colour. hard. brittle. solid. steel. Made of steel, which is a preparation of iron having been subject to great extremes of heat and cold. A STONE. 65 LESSON XXI. A STONE. Idea to be developed by this lesson, inorg a nized. To give the class an idea of organized and unorganized, a plant might be shewn with the stone ; and questions given, such as the follow- ing. Teacher. If I put these two into the earth, and visit them in a month, what great difference might I expect to perceive in them ? Children. The plant will have grown ; the stone will have remained the same size. Teacher. How did the plant increase? Children. It absorbed moisture. Teacher. By what means ? Children. Through its roots and pores. Teacher. Did this nourish only the roots? Children. No. Teacher. You are right ; the sap was pro- duced which circulated through the plant by means of vessels. You remember why we call the eyes, ears, &c. organs ? Children. They are natural instruments by which something is effected. Teacher. What would you therefore call the pores, vessels, &c. of vegetables ? F 66 THIRD SERIES.— LESSON XXI. Children. They are organs. Teacher. A body possessing organs is called organized. Name some organized bodies. Children. A tree, an insect. Teacher. What syllable, placed before a word, expresses the absence of a quality ? Children. In. Teacher. What would you call a body which is destitute of organs ? Children. Inorganized. Teacher. Mention some inorganized sub- stances. Children. Earth, water. Qualities of Stone. It is hard, cold. inorganized. opaque, mineral, solid, natural. shapeless or amorphous, inanimate. Remarks on Words. In organ ized is derived from Greek opyav ov, (organon) an instrument. FOURTH SERIES. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. The chief aim proposed in this series is, to exercise the children in arranging and classifying objects ; thus developing a higher faculty than that of simply observing their qualities. The complex operation of connecting things by their points of resemblance, and at the same time of distinguishing them individually by their points of dissimilarity, is one of the highest exercises of our reason ; yet it may be carried on in children at a much earlier period than is usually imagined, if they are trained to arrange their ideas. With this view the spices have been chosen as forming a connected series of objects. The metals, liquids, different kinds of wood, grains, &c. are good subjects for similar lessons. 08 FOURTH SERIES. — LESSON I. SPICES. LESSON I. PEPPER. Qualities of Pepper. It is hard. vegetable. foreign. 1 It is a tropical production. wrinkled. spherical. rough. black. conservative. dry. dull. 1 Teacher. If it comes from a foreign country, how do we get it ? Children. It comes in a ship. Teacher. This is called importing ; and sending out of our own country is called exporting. What do we call this exchange of productions ? Children. Trade or commerce. Teacher. And what are the people called who carry it on ? Children. Merchants, PEPPER. 69 It is sapid, pungent, odorous, aromatic, medicinal, wholesome, useful, stimulating. The pepper plant is a creeping shrub, much resembling the vine, and is often called the pepper-vine. It is generally planted near some thorny bush, among the branches of which it entwines itself like ivy. It produces berries in clusters : if the fruit be intended for black pepper, it is not allowed to ripen, but is col- lected whilst green, and rubbed by the hands or feet, till the seeds, several of which are con- tained in each berry, are separated. These are exposed on mats to the rays of the sun during the day, and are collected at night in jars, to preserve them from the dew. When the berries are intended to be converted into white pepper, they are allowed to ripen, and they then become red. They are rubbed in a basket, the pulp is removed by washing, and the seeds, which are white, are dried. 70 FOURTH SERIES. — LESSON II. LESSON II. NUTMEG. Qualities. It is sapid, hard, oval. dingy brown, dull, opaque. dry. Surface uneven. It is vegetable, natural, inanimate, foreign. tropical production, pungent, conservative, pulverable. agreeable to the taste, aromatic, odorous. The nutmeg is the kernel of a fruit, which is the produce of a tree resembling our cherry-tree, both in size and growth. It is found in the NUTMEG. 71 East Indies. The external covering of the fruit is a husk : this opens when ripe and displays a thin scarlet membrane, called mace : this being carefully removed, there still remains a woody shell which surrounds the nutmeg. The nuts are first dried in the sun, and then placed on a frame of bamboos over a slow fire, until the kernels, on being shaken, rattle in their shells. Remarks on Words. " Odorous, 3 ' "aromatic." Teacher. Why is nutmeg said to be odorous ? Children. Because it has a smell. Teacher. Why aromatic ? Children. Because it has that pungent smell distinguished by the name aromatic. Teacher. Are all things that are aromatic also odorous ? Children. Yes. Teacher. Are all things that are odorous also aromatic ? Children. No. Teacher. Is an onion odorous ? Children. Yes. Teacher. Is a rose odorous ? Children. Yes. Teacher. Are these smells alike? 72 fourth series.— lesson iii. Children. No. Teacher. Does, the term odorous include every kind of smell ? Children. Yes. Teacher. A term which includes all the varieties of one kind of quality or substance, is called a generic term, whilst that which marks one of the species is called a specific term. Odorous is a generic term, because it includes every kind of smell ; aromatic is a specific term, because it applies only to one particular smell. Give examples of generic terms, and of a specific term applicable to each of them. Children. Odorous, fragrant; coloured, red ; foreign, Chinese productions. The class should determine in succeeding les- sons, what terms are generic and what specific. LESSON III. MACF. Qualities. It is pungent. agreeable to the taste. aromatic. orange red. dull. MACE. 73 It is opaque, thin, fibrous, brittle, foreign, tropical, natural, inflammable, medicinal, dry. pulverable. membranaceous, conservative, imported, sapid, stimulating. Mace is the covering between the shell of the nutmeg and its external husk. Remarks on Words. Teacher. " Foreign." — Should you call mace a foreign production, if you were in the place were it grows ? Children. No. Teacher. Should you call it pungent and aromatic, if you were there? Children. Yes. Teacher. Can it be mace without being foreign ? Children. Yes. 74 FOURTH SERIES. — LESSON IV. Teacher. Can it be mace without being pungent and aromatic ? Children. No. Those qualities which determine any thing to be what it is, are called essential, from the Latin esse, to be. Qualities which are not essential are called accidental, from the Latin accidens, happening. What qualities of mace are essential ? What qualities of mace are accidental •-> LESSON IV. CINNAMON. Qualities. It is light brown, and gives name to a colour, thin, brittle, conservative, aromatic, pungent. agreeable to the taste, opaque, hard, sweet. inflammable. dry. CINNAMON. 75 It is vegetable, natural, foreign, inanimate, light. pulverable. medicinal, stimulating, flaky. Cinnamon is the inner bark of the branches of a kind of laurel tree, growing in Ceylon and Malabar. The branches of three years old are selected as furnishing the best cinnamon : the outside bark is scraped off ; the branches are then ripped up lengthways with a knife, and the inner bark is gradually loosened, till it can be entirely taken off. Exposure to the sun causes it to curl up. The pieces of bark so curled are called quills, and the smaller ones are inserted into the larger. Remarks on Words. Inflam mable, is derived from, flam ma, a flame. Medicin al, Medicine. 7G FOURTH SERIES. — LESSON V LESSON V. GINGER. Qualities. It is fibrous, knotty, sapid, rough, jagged, inanimate, vegetable, tropical, foreign, aromatic, pungent, dry. dull, solid, hard. conservative, light. yellowish brown, pulverable. medicinal, stimulating, wholesome, opaque. inflammable. ALLSPICE. 77 | Ginger is the root of a plant resembling a jreed, which grows both in the East and West I Indies. The root does not strike to a consider- able depth in the earth, but spreads wide. When first dug up it is soft, and eaten by the Indians as a salad. If intended for exportation, it is placed in bundles, and dried in the sun. LESSON VI. ALLSPICE. Parts. Qualitie The inside. It is aromatic. outside. odorous. skin. pungent. seeds. spherical. partition of seed-vessel. brown. point of insertion. speckled. organized. natural. vegetable. inanimate. dry. opaque. tropical. imported. dull. 78 FOURTH SERIES. — LESSON VII. It is stimulating, hard. inflammable, friable, sapid, wrinkled, conservative. Allspice or Pimento is the dried berry of a species of a myrtle, indigenous in the West Indies ; it is a most beautiful and fragrant tree, producing numerous bunches of white flowers, to which succeed the berries ; these are gathered by the hand and spread out in the sun to dry. In this operation they lose their former colour, and become brown. When the seeds rattle in the shell, they are known to be sufficiently dry, and are packed in bags for exportation. The flavour of pimento is considered to unite that of the other spices : hence the name of Allspice. LESSON VII. A CLOVE. Parts. Qualities. The calyx or cup. It is aromatic, tube. odorous, leafits of cup pungent. A CLOVE. 79 The points of leafits. It is brown, bud. organized, surfaces. natural, edges. vegetable, inanimate. dry. opaque, tropical, imported, dull. stimulating, hard. inflammable, conservative. The bud is spherical. The tube is long. The leafits are pointed. Cloves are the unexpanded flower-buds and calyx of a species of laurel which grows in the West Indies. At a certain season of the year, the clove tree produces a profusion of flowers in clusters ; they are gathered before the flower opens, when the four points of the calyx project, and the petals are folded one over the other, forming a bud about the size of a pea. After they are gathered, they are exposed for some time to the smoke of a wood fire, and then to the rays of the sun. At the conclusion of the lesson on Spices, the HO FOURTH SERIES. — LESSON VII. children should be called upon to mention those qualities which they had found common to all ; as aromatic, pungent, dry, tropical, stimulating, vegetable. Then let some other similar sub- stance be presented to them, as mustard. Teacher. Is this a spice ? Children. No. Teacher. Why not ? Children. It has not the qualities of a spice. Teacher. If I shewed you a substance with which you were not previously acquainted, and you found that it possessed the essential qualities of the spices you have examined, what would you consider it to be ? Children. A spice. Teacher. To what then do you apply the term spice ? Children. To a set of natural productions possessing certain qualities. Teacher. When a number of things are arranged together, each having similar qualities what would you call the collection ? What would you call a number of boys who are placed together because they are nearly equal in know- ledge ? Children. A class. Teacher. What then would you call a collec- tion of substances that possess the same qualities ? Children. A class. Teacher. What may you call all substances which are aromatic, pungent, tropical, &c. THE SPICES. 81 Children. A class. Teacher. And what is the name of that class ? Children. Spice. Teacher. What then does the term spice express. Children. A class of substances, possess- ing the qualities aromatic, pungent, &c. Teacher. Tell me all the substances be- longing to that class ? Children. Pepper, nutmeg, mace, cinna- mon, ginger, allspice, cloves. Teacher. Are all the substances of this class alike in all respects ? Children. No. Teacher. How can you tell one spice from another ? Children. Because each has some qualities peculiar to itself. Teacher. Name the particular circumstance which distinguishes each. Children. Ginger is a root; pepper is a seed ; nutmeg is a kernel ; mace is the membra- naceous covering of that kernel ; cinnamon is a bark ; pimento is a seed-vessel ; the clove is a cup and flower bud. 82 FOURTH SERIES.— LESSON VIII. ON LIQUIDS. LESSON VIII. WATER. Qualities of Water. It is fluid. transparent. clear. colourless. liquid. useful. bright. incompressible except by immense power. reflective. drinkable. wholesome. tasteless. cold. inodorous. natural. solvent. refreshing. inanimate. penetrating. purifying. WATER. 8S It is cooling, fertilizing, heavy. Some waters are medicinal. Different kinds of Water, Rain, spring, sea, or salt, river, medicinal, hot spring, stagnant. Different states of Water. Ice. snow. hail. rain. mist. fog. cloud. vapour. dew. steam. Natural collections of Water. Oceans. seas. lakes. G 2 84 FOURTH SERIES LESSON VIII. rivers, ponds, springs. Operations of Water. — It purifies, evaporates, freezes, quenches thirst, cools, finds its own level, penetrates, fertilizes, is a solvent, extin- guishes fire, separates easily into portions which assume a spherical form. Teacher. You find the particles of water run about ; will the particles of wood do the same ? Children. No. Teacher. Why will not the particles of wood flow about ? Children. Because they stick close to- gether. Teacher. This is called cohering. You remember what adhesive is derived from. Children. From ad to, and hasr ere to stick. Teacher. Cohere is derived from cohasrere, to stick together. When one substance is joined to another, it is said to adhere (or stick to : ) when the particles of the same substance stick together, they are said to cohere. The particles of a liquid cohere very slightly, and are therefore easily separated. The parti- cles of a solid cohere closely. oil. 85 LESSON IX. OIL. Qualities of Oil. It is fluid. yellowish, semi-transparent, soft. liquid, penetrating, emollient, greasy, useful, light, thick. inflammable, oleaginous. Some oils are vegetable. Some are animal. When bad, it is rancid, odorous. The vegetable oil is expressed from olives, and is imported chiefly from Italy and the South of France. It is also obtained from nuts and some other fruits, and from seeds. The animal oil is procured from the blubber or fat of the whale and seal. Birds are furnished with little bags containing Sf> FOURTH SERIES. — LESSON X. oil ; with this they plume their feathers, and it causes rain and moisture to trickle off. With- out this provision, the feathers of water-fowl would imbibe so much moisture, as to render them too heavy for floating on the water. LESSON X. BEER. Qualities. It is liquid, fluid. orange-colour, wholesome, fermented, artificial, useful, odorous. semi-transparent, slightly intoxicating, strengthening. liter is composed of malt, hops, and water foiled together. Hops are the blossoms of a creeping plant, very much cultivated in Kent: flic place where they grow is called a hop-yard. The tub in which the malt is first steeped is (ailed a mashiny-tub ; that which holds the beer when made, a vat. Malt is made of barley, by the following FOREIGN WHITE WINE. 87 j process. A quantity of barley is soaked in water for two or three days; the water being j afterwards drained off, the grain heats sponta- neously, swells, bursts, becomes sweet, and | ferments. Vegetables during decomposition, undergo several degrees of fermentation ; the first, ( that above described ) is call- ed the saccharine fermentation, from the sweetness it produces ; sacchar um, being the latin word for sugar. In consequence of this decomposition, which is similar to that which takes place in seed in the ground, the barley begins to sprout, but this vegetation is stopped by putting it into a kiln, where it is well dried by a gentle heat. LESSON XL FOREIGN WHITE WINE. Qualities. It is yellowish, bright, fluid, liquid, fermented, spirituous, intoxicating, heating, vegetable. 88 FOURTH SERIES. — LESSON XII. It is artificial. semi-transparent. sapid. medicinal. stimulating. clear. strengthening. yielding to the touch. Wine is made from the grape, the fruit of the vine, which is cultivated in vineyards. The season of its gathering is called the vintage. The grapes, when gathered, are placed in a ivine-press, by which the juice is expressed ; this juice undergoes a fermentation, and becomes wine. This is the second fermentation which vegetable matter undergoes : it is called the vinous fermentation, from its producing wine ; vinum being the latin word for wine. LESSON XII. VINEGAR. Qualities. It is acid. orange-brown colour. liquid. fluid. yielding to the touch. INK. 89 It is penetrating, stimulating, vegetable. artificial, medicinal, odorous, useful. conservative, semi-transparent. Uses. — To flavour food ; for pickling ; for medicine. It is called Vinegar, from the French Vinaigre, Vin, wine, — aigre, sour; because it is frequently procured from wine. The fermentation by which this acidity is produced, is called the acetous fermentation, from Lat. acetum, vinegar. LESSON XIII. INK. Qualities. It is black, bright, useful, opaque, artificial, liquid. 00 FOURTH SERIES. — LESSON XIV. It is astringent, fluid. yielding to the touch, poisonous. Ink is made of galls, gum, sulphate of iron, and water. Galls are found upon the oak : they are occasioned by a little insect, which pierces the bark of the tree, and lays its eggs in the hole which it has formed. The torn vessels of the tree discharge a portion of their contents, this hardening, forms at first a defence for the eggs, and subsequently food for the caterpillars they produce. These latter eat their way out of their confinement, before they change into the perfect insect. Iron dissolved in sulphuric acid, is called sulphate of iron, when this is applied to the acid of the galls, it becomes black, upon which quality the utility of ink depends. A little gum is added, to cause the ink to adhere to the paper. LESSON XIV. MILK. Qualities. It is white, fluid, liquid. MILK. 91 It it wholesome. nice. An animal substance, natural, opaque, soft, smooth. yielding to the touch, emollient. When fresh it is warm. nutritious. Uses. — For animals to feed their young ; for making cheese, butter ; to drink. The milk of cows is that most generally used by man. Invalids drink the milk of asses. In Tartary the milk of mares is used ; in Switzer- land that of goats; in the northern countries that of rein-deer ; in Arabia that of camels. The Teacher would find it a very improving and interesting exercise, to take two substances and compare them together, — as water and milk, requiring the class to find out in what respects they are both alike. They are both fluid, liquid, cold, incompressible, penetrating, natural, &c. The qualities by which they are distinguished from each other should then be mentioned. The water is transparent, the milk is opaque ; the water is colourless, the milk is white ; the water is tasteless, the milk is sweet, &c. 02 FOURTH SERIES — LESSON XIV. Liquids possess qualities by which they are very clearly distinguished from other substances. They may all become solid, they are all fluid, and incompressible : their parts easily separate, forming* into spheres or drops ; they penetrate into the pores of substances ; and they rind their own level. This last circumstance can easily be proved to the pupils by means of a syphon. Having named the properties common to all liquids, the class should also be required to mention the qualities jieculiar to each, as in the lesson on spices. Water is transparent, colourless, tasteless, inodorous, bright. Oil is yellowish, thick, emollient, semi-trans- parent, greasy, inflammable. Beer is orange-coloured, bitter, spirituous, artificial, fermented. White Wine is bright, yellowish, intoxicating, stimulating, fermented. Vinegar is acid, orange-coloured, semi- transparent. Ink is black, bright, opaque, artificial. Milk is white, opaque, sweet, nourishing, natural. FIFTH SERIES. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. These lessons are intended as a first exercise in composition. The object should be presented to the children, and they should continue, as before, to make their own observations upon it. Questions should then be addressed to them, calculated to elicit their knowledge of its natural history, and further particulars should after- wards be communicated by the teacher, to render their information more complete. After having re-arranged and repeated the materials so obtained, the teacher should examine the class, and require a written account. Children, from eight to ten years of age, have derived great improvement from this exercise in com- position. It stimulates their attention, furnishes a test of their having well understood the lesson, and leads them to arrange and express their ideas with clearness and facility. Artificial sub- stances should be exhibited both in their raw and manufactured state. Thus, in the lesson on flax, the plant itself, the fibres when separated from the stem, the thread when spun, and the 94 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON I. various articles into which it is manufactured, may be brought before the class and likewise pictures of the machinery employed in the manufacturer. Many of the lessons in the following series will contain too much matter to be presented at one time to the pupils, and must therefore be divided. LESSON I. CAMPHOR. Camphor is the peculiar juice of a species of laurel called the camphor tree, which is abundant in China, Borneo, and Ceylon. Exposure to the air hardens it. It is remarkably inflammable and is used by the Indian princes to illuminate their rooms. It is pungent, volatile, acrid, and strongly aromatic. These qualities have rendered it useful as a medicine, and in sick rooms to prevent contagion. It is also placed in cabinets of natural history to destroy the small insects that prey upon the specimens. WAX CANDLE.— PUTTY. 95 LESSON II. WAX CANDLE. Wax is the produce of bees : it is a substance which is secreted in their bodies, and of which they construct their cells. When the honey is taken out of the comb, the latter is melted, and afterwards bleached by exposure to the air. The wax in a liquid state is poured into leaden moulds, in the centre of which the wick has been previously fixed. The wick is made of cotton or flax, and when lighted, the melted wax rises up its fibres and feeds the flame. LESSON III. PUTTY. Putty is a soft unctuous substance which hardens by exposure to the air, and is used by Glaziers to fasten the panes of glass to the window frames. It is composed of linseed oil and whiting, sometimes with the addition of white lead. The whiting is prepared from chalk ground into a fine powder ; and the oil and 0(J FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON IV. white lead are worked into it, till all the sub- | stances are thoroughly mixed together. Linseed oil is extracted from the seed of the flax ; which in latin is called lin um. LESSON IV. SHELL LAC. Shell lac is a substance produced by a little insect called Coccus Lacca, and is deposited on the small branches of the Indian fig tree, for the protection of its eggs. It discharges the gum from its own body, and forms it into cells, in each of which is placed an egg. When the eggs are hatched, the young grub pierces through the viscid substance which enclosed it, and flies away. The lac is first sold on the sticks, when it is called stick lac, but after it has been puri- fied and formed into thin layers or cakes, it is called shell lac. It is the principal ingredient in sealing wax and varnish, and is employed in japanning. Its usefulness arises from its being fusible, soluble, and adhesive. BUTTER. — CHEESE. 97 LESSON V. BUTTER. Butter is prepared from the milk of the cow. When milk has been allowed to stand a few hours, a thick rich substance, called cream, rises to the surface. This is skimmed off, and by being briskly agitated, is converted into butter. The instrument by which this operation is performed is called a churn. There is another substance found in the churn besides the butter ; it is called butter-milk, and when fresh, is drunk by the peasantry. The butter prepared for winter srore is salted, and packed in barrels and tubs. The person who tends the cattle is called a cow-herd ; and the place where the milk is kept a LESSON VI. CHEESE. Cheese is prepared from milk which is co- agulated or curdled, by mixing it with a liquor called rennet ; the curds thus formed are a white solid substance ; they are separated from H 98 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON VII. the whey or watery particles, and then pressed and dried. Rennet is made by steeping the inner membrane of a young calf's stomach in water. A colour is usually given to cheese by saffron, or by a substance called annatto, which is the seed-vessel of a shrub growing in the West Indies. LESSON VII. HORN. Horn is the hard substance that forms the frontal projections of horned animals, all of which are graminivorous. 1 This substance, when boiled, becomes a soft jelly, and can be moulded into any shape. By a peculiar pro- cess it is rendered semitransparent, and when formed into thin laminae or plates, is employed instead of glass for lanterns. It was the first transparent substance used for windows. It is now chiefly employed for combs, handles to knives and forks, occasionally for drinking utensils and inkhorns. It was formerly in much greater request than it is now, glass having been substituted in its place. 1 From Latin gram en, grass : vor are, to eat. HONEY.— STARCH. 99 LESSON VIII. HONEY. Honey is a sweet vegetable juice, collected by bees from the nectaries of flowers. These insects are furnished with a long hollow trunk, or proboscis, which they insert into the tubes of flowers and suck up the honey they contain ; when well laden with their treasure, they carry it home and deposit it in their cells for a winter store. The description given of Judea as a "land flowing with milk and honey," was literally true. The richness of the vegetation supplied the bees with ample stores; their combs were usually placed in clefts of rocks or the hollows of trees, and being continually melted by the heat of the sun, the honey actually flowed out of them in streams. See 1 Sam. xiv. 25, 26. LESSON IX. STARCH. Starch is a substance which may be obtained from several farinaceous vegetables; it is gene- rally prepared from wheat, by the following H 2 100 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON X. process. The wheat is put into tubs of water, and exposed for some days to the heat of the sun, which brings on a degree of fermentation ; the water is changed twice a day. Having thus become sufficiently softened, it is poured into large canvass bags, which are worked or beaten, in order to separate the husks from the farina- ceous particles ; these last are received into an empty vessel. Fresh water is then mixed with them, and the whole is left to settle ; the water is poured off, and the sediment which remains at the bottom of the vessel is starch : this is formed into small pieces and dried. Starch, with the addition of smalt or stone blue, is used to stiffen linen : it is also formed into a powder for the hair. Starch or Fecula, is the nutritive part of most grains and roots ; it may be extracted in considerable quantities from potatoes. LESSON X. SAFFRON. Saffron is the orange-coloured pistil of a purple species of crocus, the leaves of which appear in spring, and the blossoms in autumn. It abounds in the neighbourhood of Saffron Waldon, in Essex, which takes its name from that circumstance. The flowers are gathered COURT PLASTER. 101 every morning just before they expand ; and as they continue to open in succession for several weeks, the saffron harvest lasts a considerable time. When the flowers are gathered, they are spread on a table : the upper part of the pistil only is of any value. When a sufficient quantity of these are collected, they are dried upon a kind of portable kiln ; over this a hair cloth is stretched, and upon it a few sheets of white paper ; the saffron is placed upon these to the thickness of two or three inches ; the whole is then covered with white paper, over which is placed a coarse blanket or canvass bag filled with straw. When the fire has heated the kiln, a board, on which is a weight, is placed upon the blanket and presses the saffron together. It is used as a medicine, to flavour cakes, and to form a yellow dye. LESSON XI. COURT PLASTER. Court Plaster is a black, adhesive, thin sub- stance, applied to wounds on the skin, to protect them from the injurious effects of the air. The following is the manner of preparing it: a thin black sarcenet is stretched on a frame ; a warm solution of Isinglass is applied with a brush 102 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XII. equally over the surface; when dry, this opera- tion is repeated a second or third time. It is next washed over with some Benzoin dissolved in spirits of wine. Benzoin is a resinous gum, which exudes from a tree growing in Sumatra. It possesses an aromatic perfume, and acts as a styptic. It is the chief ingredient in Friar's Balsam, and gives it the healing virtue it possesses. LESSON XII. GLUE. Glue is a viscid tenacious substance, used as a cement. The best is obtained from the skin of animals, generally the shavings, parings, and strips, which have been rejected by the currier. An inferior kind is procured from the hoofs, sinews, &c. of animals. It is prepared by steeping the skin for two or three days in water, then boiling it till it becomes a thick jelly ; whilst hot it is strained through osier baskets, the pure glue passes through the interstices, leaving the impurities in the baskets. It is then melted a second time, poured into square frames or moulds, and placed in the air to cool gradu- ally and congeal. Glue is used by carpenters, joiners, hatters, bookbinders, &c. TAMARINDS. 103 Isinglass is a kind of glue, prepared from the air bladders or sounds of all the species of the Sturgeon ; it is used for culinary purposes, and for refining wine. LESSON XIII. TAMARINDS. The fruit of the Tamarind is a roundish, somewhat compressed pod, about four or five inches long, the external part of which is very brittle. Each pod contains three or four hard seeds enclosed in tough skins, surrounded by a dark coloured acid pulp, and connected together by numerous tough woody fibres. Before the tamarinds are exported, the pulp with the seeds and fibres, are taken out of the pod, and those which are the produce of the West Indies are preserved in a syrup. The East Indian Tama- rinds are usually sent without any such admix- ture. In hot countries the tamarind is valued as a refreshing fruit; and, steeped in water, it forms a cooling beverage. 104 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XIV. LESSON XIV. INDIAN RUBBER, OR GUM ELASTIC. Indian Rubber is the hardened juice of a tree which grows in South America. The Indians make incisions through the bark of the tree, chiefly in wet weather; a milky juice oozes out, which is spread over moulds of clay ; when the first layer is dry, a second is put over it ; this operation is repeated till the India Rubber is of the thickness required. After this it is placed over the smoke of burning vegetables, which hardens and darkens it. The natives apply it to various purposes ; for water- proof boots, for bottles, and also for flambeaux, which give a very brilliant light, and burn for a great length of time. The principal uses to which Indian Rubber is applied here, are the effacing of black lead marks, for water- proof shoes, for balls, flexible tubes, syringes, and other instru- ments used by surgeons and chemists. Cloth of all kind may be made impenetrable to water, if impregnated with the fresh juice of the Indian Rubber tree. Ship bottoms are sometimes sheathed with Indian Rubber, cut very thin ; it is said to be an effectual preservative from the injuries of shell fish. FOREIGN CURRANTS. 105 LESSON XV. FOREIGN CURRANTS. The foreign, or dried currants, are a species of small raisins or grapes, which chiefly grow in the Grecian Islands. They were formerly very abundant in the Isthmus of Corinth — and were called from thence Corinths , this term has been corrupted into currants, probably from their resemblance to the English fruit of that name. These little grapes have no stones, and are of a reddish black colour ; they are ex- tremely delicious when fresh gathered. The harvest commences in August ; and as soon as the grapes are gathered, they are spread to dry on a floor, prepared for the purpose by stamping the earth quite hard. This floor is formed with a gentle rising in the middle, that the rain, in case any should fall, may flow off and not injure the fruit. When sufficiently dry, the currents are cleaned and laid up in magazines, where they are so closely pressed together, that when a supply is needed, it is dug out with an iron instrument. They are packed in large casks for export- ation, and trodden down by the natives. 106 FIFTH SERIES.— LESSON XVI. LESSON XVI. CORK. Cork is the bark of a kind of oak, growing chiefly in Spain. When it is to be removed from the tree, a longitudinal slit is cut, at the extremities of which incisions are made round the trunk ; it can then be stripped off with great ease by means of a curved knife with a handle at both ends. When the bark is taken from the tree, it is piled up in a ditch or pond, and heavy stones are placed upon it, in order to flatten it. After being dried, it is slightly burnt or charred, and then packed for exportation. One principal use of cork is to stop bottles, for which purpose it is fitted by its elasticity ; a piece rather larger than the neck of the bottle being inserted, the tendency it has to resume its former shape causes it completely to till up the aperture, and exclude the air. Its buoyant effect in water, arising from its lightness, renders it useful to those who are learning to swim; for the same reason it is employed in the construction of life-boats, and for the floats of fishing-nets. The Spaniards make lamp-black of it. The men employed in cutting and preparing it for sale, are called cork-cutters. LEATHER. 107 LESSON XVII. LEATHER. Leather is the prepared skin of animals ; that of cows, oxen, and horses, is chiefly used for shoes ; that of kids, goats, and dogs, for gloves, and also shoes ; and that of calves for book- binding, saddles, harness, &c. The unprepared skin is called a hide ; the first operation it undergoes is soaking in lime- water to cleanse it from grease and other impu- rities ; the hairs are then removed by a kind of knife, the oil and grease are afterwards more completely extracted by an alkali, or diluted sulphuric acid. After this, it is taken to the tan-yard, stretched over a pit, and covered with tan; in this state it remains about two months* But if the leather be intended for the upper part of shoes, seats of saddles, and such purposes as do not require great strength or impermeability to water, it is first sent to the currier : his work is to scrape it, reducing it all to an equal degree of thickness, and also to render it supple by oil or grease. The skins are then tanned. Tan is the bark of the oak, possessing a remarkable degree of astringency ; it consequently contracts the pores of the leather, and renders it imper- vious to wet. The quality which the leather 108 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XVIII. thus obtains from the tanning, combined with its durability and suppleness, particularly adapts it for shoes, boots, &c. LESSON XVIII. SPONGE. Sponge is a marine production ; it was for- merly supposed to be a vegetable, but the opinion now generally entertained, is that it is a habi- tation constructed by a little worm, one of the species considered to occupy the lowest rank in the animal kingdom. It is found adhering to various marine substances at the bottom of the sea, especially in the Mediterranean, and is pro- cured by divers, who are early trained to this employment. Sponge absorbs fluids rapidly, and yields them again when compressed. It was frequently saturated with myrrh and wine, and given to persons suffering the punishment of crucifixion, in order to deaden the sense of pain, and subdue the intolerable thirst which is the consequence of their agony. To this custom the sacred historian refers in the account of our Lord's death ; but his unrelenting per- secutors, instead of offering him the myrrh and wine, " filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth." The COFFEE. 109 offer of vinegar was considered, among the Jews, as an intolerable outrage to their feelings. It is alluded to in the following passage, which at the same time foretold the future sufferings of the Redeemer of mankind. " Reproach hath broken mine heart, and I am full of heaviness ; and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none ; and for comforters but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Psalm Ixix. 20, 21. LESSON XIX. COFFEE. Coffee is the seed of a plant growing princi- pally in Arabia and the West Indies ; the flower resembles jasmine, and the leaves are evergreen, the fruit when ripe is like the cherry ; it contains two cells, and each cell has a single hemispherical seed. When ripe, it is either gathered by the hand, or shaken from the trees, and placed on mats for the sun to dry the pulpy substance which surrounds the seed. The husk is broken by heavy rollers, and afterwards removed by winnowing. In order to prepare the coffee for a beverage, it must be roasted till it becomes of a dark brown colour, and 110 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XX. extremely odorous; after which it is ground, and either infused or boiled in water. It is remarkable for its very stimulating property. Its discovery is said to have been occasioned by the following circumstance. Some goats, who browsed upon this plant, were observed by the goatherd to be exceedingly wakeful, and often to caper about in the night ; the prior of a neighbouring monastery, wishing to keep his monks awake at their matins, tried if the coffee would produce the same effect upon them as it was observed to do upon the goats : the success of his experiment led to the appreciation of its value. LESSON XX. TEA. The beverage called Tea is an infusion of leaves; the plant which produces them is a native of Japan and China ; it bears a flower resembling the wild rose, and the leaves are narrow, pointed, and serrated. It grows only in a stony soil, and at the foot of mountains and rocks, exposed to a southern aspect. There is great art exercised in gathering and drying the leaves, which are afterwards subjected to the vapours of boiling water to moisten them. In this state they are laid upon plates of metal, RICE. Ill and being exposed to considerable heat, curl up. Green tea is the produce of the same plant as black : the difference of its qualities arises from the leaves being gathered in a different stage of their growth, and from their being dried upon plates of copper. LESSON XXI. RICE. Rice is the grain of a kind of corn, and grows in a spike similar to oats ; it is very abundant in China, the West Indies and America; it is also produced in the south of Europe : Switzerland draws its supplies from Piedmont. It will not thrive without much moisture, and therefore comes to the greatest perfection in marshy lands. The cul- tivators of rice always inundate their grounds, and the higher the water rises, the higher the plant grows, the ear always appearing above the water. It requires as much heat to mature the seed, as it does moisture to nourish the plant in its growth. In India the women thrash and prepare the rice, which is a very laborious employment. The Bramins live almost en- tirely upon it, their religion forbidding them the use of animal food. Rice is very nutritious, 112 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XXII. wholesome food ; it is also manufactured into vessels which resemble china or alabaster. LESSON XXII. SAGO. Sago is the pith of the sago palm, a tree indigenous to Japan and the dry rocky moun- tains of Malabar. It is hardly possible to imagine a plant more graceful in its foliage, or more beautiful when in fruit than this species of palm. The foliation, which slightly resembles that of the fern, is placed on the stem in the manner of the feathers of a shuttlecock, forming a gigantic basket of the most graceful appearance ; at the bottom of this is the salmon-coloured flower, resembling both in shape and texture, the flower of the cockscomb, but of a pale buff colour inclining to brown. The fruit is a drupa, that is, a nut sur- rounded by a pulpy substance, as a plum. The growth of this plant at first is slow, it appears for some time a shrub thickly set with prickles ; as it increases in height, it loses its thorns. When the tree has reached its maturity, a whitish powder transpires through the pores of the leaves, and adheres to their extremities. On THE COCOA NUT. 113 this intimation of the trees being filled with pith, the Malays cut them clown near their roots, and divide them into several sections, which are split into quarters. The bark is woody and about an inch in thickness ; in the centre of the stem is a fat or gummy pith, which forms the sago. This pithy substance being scooped out, is diluted in pure water, and strained through a bag of fine cloth, which separates the glutinous from the farinaceous matter. This latter having lost part of its moisture by evaporation, is passed through sieves, by which process it becomes granulated, and being received into earthen vessels, it dries and hardens into little globules. Sago is extremely nutritious and wholesome, and forms an excellent light diet for invalids. LESSON XXIII. THE COCOA NUT. The tree which produces this fruit is a kind of Palm, its trunk resembles a stately column, crowned at the summit with narrow leaves four- teen or fifteen feet in length, and only three in breadth ; amidst these hangs the fruit. The ex- ternal rind of the cocoa nut is brown, smooth, and approaches a triangular form. Thiscoveriirg i 114 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XXIII. encloses an extremely fibrous substance of con- siderable thickness which immediately surrounds the nut — the latter has a thick and hard shell with three holes at the base, each closed by a black membrane. The kernel is about an inch in thickness, it lines the shell and encloses a sweet refreshing liquid. The Cocoa-nut tree affords the Indians food, cloathing, and means of shelter. Before the kernel comes to maturity it is soft and pulpy, may be scraped out with a spoon, and affords the natives an agreeable and nutritious food; when pressed in a mill it yields an oil. By making incisions in the tree during the spring, a cool refreshing liquor flows out, which if allowed to stand any time, ferments, becomes spirituous, and is exceedingly intoxicating — it is called Toddy. By soaking the fibrous trunk in water it becomes soft and can be manufactured into sailcloth or twisted into cordage of any description, which surpasses in durability that formed of hemp. The woody shells are used for cups, ladles, or other domestic utensils. The trunk of the tree furnishes either beams or rafters for their habitations, or is made into boats. The leaves platted together form an ex- cellent thatch, they are also used for umbrellas, mats, and various other useful articles. BREAD. 115 LESSON XXIV. BREAD. Bread is made of flour, yeast, and a little salt, kneaded together with water into a soft paste called dough. Flour is most frequently made of wheat. It is first thrashed, either with a flail or a thrashing machine ; the grain is next separated from the chaff by winnowing : it is then ground in a mill and converted into flour; the skin of the grain when separated is called hran, when left with the flour it makes the flour browner and coarser. Yeast is the frothy substance which rises to the top of new beer; it penetrates the dough, disunites the particles, causes them to rise, and thus makes the bread light. It is similar in its effects to the leaven mentioned in Scripture, which is sour dough penetrating and changing the state of the whole mass with which it is mixed. Leaven is used to represent that evil disposition we inherit from Adam, and which pervades and corrupts our whole nature. Our Saviour calls himself the bread of life ; intimating, that as bread by its nutritious properties supports our bodies, so He, by the influences of his Spirit, maintains the life of our souls. Bread is termed the staff I 2 116 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XXV. of life, and is frequently used to signify food in general. A man is thus said to earn his bread, and we pray for our daily bread. Hye, oats, and barley, are sometimes made into bread. LESSON XXV. SUGAR. Sugar is the produce of the sugar-cane, a plant growing principally in the East and West Indies. A field of canes in blossom presents a beautiful sight; the stem is a jointed culmus or reed, of a bright golden hue when ripe, and growing amidst long narrow pendant leaves. The flowers appear like a plume of white feathers tinged with lilac. When ripe, the cane or stem is gathered and conveyed to the mill, where it is pressed between two iron cylinders: the juice is received into a trough, and from thence it is conveyed to a boiler, into which some quick lime is thrown ; this uniting with the oleaginous particles and the superabundant acid, rises with them to the surface and is skimmed off. When the sugar nearly boils, it is strained off into another boiler, where it undergoes the same process as before. This is repeated six or seven times, when it is received into coolers, which are shal- WHALEBONE. 117 low wooden vessels. In these the sugar forms into grains, separating itself from the molasses ; when dry, it is called raw sugar, and is barrelled for exportation. The process of converting it into white or refined sugar, is the business of the sugar refiner or baker ; he boils it over again, putting bullocks' blood and white of eggs into it to cleanse it from impurities. The planter is the cultivator of the sugar- canes. The merchant imports it. The sugar- refiner converts it into white sugar. The grocer retails the sugar in small quantities. LESSON XXVI. WHALEBONE. Whalebone is taken from the jaw-bone of the whale, the largest animal that now inhabits our globe. The vessels employed in the whale- fishery are called whalers, and the fish is caught in the following manner. When, by the water which it spouts up, it is ascertained to be near, six boats are dispatched from the whaler, with six rowers in each, and a man called an har- pooner, from his being armed with a harpoon, a kind of forked instrument ; to this is affixed a rope, at the other end of which is a gourd ; the harpoon having been darted into the whale, J 18 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XXVII. the gourd marks the spot where the wounded animal disappears. When the whale is struck, he dives with such velocity under the surface that it is necessary to wet the rope which he drags over the side of the boat, to prevent its taking fire ; and the fishermen loose their hold of it for a time, till the strength of the animal is in some degree spent, or there would be danger of his sinking the boat by his extreme violence. The whale cannot remain long under water; he soon re-appears spouting up blood, and is again attacked by the harpooners, who after repeated efforts dispatch him. When dead, he is cut up. The fat, which is called blubber, is stowed into casks, and oil is afterwards pro- cured from it. The bone is used as a stiffened for whips, bows, stays, &c. The whale fisheries are carried on in the Polar Seas. LESSON XXVII. GLASS. Glass is made of sand or flint, combined with an alkali, by exposure to intense heat, which causes these substances to unite and melt. This mixture is said to have been discovered acciden- tally in Syria, by some merchants, who were driven by stress of weather upon its shores. GLASS. 119 They had lighted a fire upon the sands to cook their food ; the fire was made of the plant called kali, which grows on the sea-shore ; the sand mixed with its ashes, became virtified * by the heat. This furnished the merchants with the hint that led to the making of glass, which was first regularly manufactured at Sidon in Syria. Eng- land is now much celebrated for its glass. The qualities which render the substance so valuable, are, that it is hard, transparent, incorrosive, not being affected by any substance but fluoric acid, and that when fused it becomes so ductile and plastic, that it may be moulded into any form, which it will retain when cool. There are three sorts of furnaces used in making it : one to pre- pare the frit, a second to work the glass, and a third to anneal it. After having properly mixed the ashes and sand, they are put into the first furnace, where they are burned or calcined for a sufficient time, and become what is called frit. This being boiled afterwards in pots or crucibles of pipe-clay in the second furnace, is fit for the operation of blowing ; the annealing furnace is intended to cool the glass very gradually : for if it be exposed to the cold air immediately after being blown, it will fall into a thousand pieces, as if struck by a hammer. Before glass was invented, thin folia of mica were used for windows. 1 Derived from Lat. vitr. urn, glass : and fi t, it becomes. 120 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XXVIII. LESSON XXVIII. PARCHMENT. Parchment is the skin of sheep or goats, pre- pared in the following manner. The wool or hair is stripped off the skin, which is then taken to the lime-pit ; after this it is stretched as tight as a drum upon a frame, and the flesh pared off with a keen-edged instrument ; a kind of white stone or chalk reduced to a fine powder is then spread upon the surface, and a large pumice- stone, flat at bottom, is rubbed over it, which scours off the remainder of the flesh. The knife is once more applied to the skin, which is moistened and rubbed again with the pumice- stone, until the inner side is smooth. The out- side then undergoes a similar operation. It is now left to dry, and afterwards is taken off the frame and given to the parchment maker. He first puts it on an instrument called a summer, (which is a calf's skin well stretched on a frame), and scrapes it with a sharp iron tool, until one half of the thickness of the skin is pared off; the pumice-stone is next passed over it on both sides, till it is rendered quite smooth. Parchment was in use long before the inven- tion of paper. Wills, and other documents, in- tended to be preserved for any length of time, are written on it. It is also used for drums. PAPER. 121 LESSON XXIX. PAPER. Linen Paper was first introduced into England in the fourteenth century. It is made of linen rags, first carefully picked and sorted, according to their quality ; they are then reduced to a pulp by a machine, which consists of a solid cylindrical piece of wood, into which are fastened plates of steel, ground very sharp : this is fixed in a trough into which the rags are put with a sufficient quantity of water. At the bottom of the trough is a plate with steel bars, also ground sharp. The engine being turned round with considerable velocity, and the rags passing through the two sets of iron plates, are torn to pieces, and in the course of four hours are reduced to a pulp. The motion of the engine causes the water in the trough to circulate, and by that means constantly returns the stuff to the engine. The trough is fed with clear water at one end, while the dirty water is carried off at the other through a hole defended with wire grating to prevent the escape of the pulp. From this, which is called the washing engine, the pulp passes in a state of purity and white- ness to another engine similarly constructed, and called the beating engine. The only difference 122 FIFTH SERIES.— LESSON XXIX. between this operation and the former is, that the velocity is increased, and that it is no longer necessary to introduce fresh water, the pulp having been already cleansed from its impurities. From hence it passes into a large vat connected with boilers, and the heat they produce gives the pulp a degree of consistency; it is after- wards conveyed into smaller vessels, in each of which is a wheel called an agitator, which pre- vents it from sinking to the bottom. Into these vessels a workman dips a mould, a kind of sieve the size of the paper to be made, and about an inch deep : the bottom is formed of fine brass wires through which the superfluous water passes. The skill of the workman consists in taking up just so much pulp as is necessary to form the paper of a proper thickness. Another workman is stationed to receive from the first the mould, out of which he turns the sheet upon a felt or woollen cloth : another woollen cloth is placed upon it ready to receive the next sheet. Thus they proceed, placing alternately paper and felt, till they have made six quires of paper. This is then wheeled to the press, where great force is applied, and the water is squeezed from it. After this, the paper is separated from the felt, one sheet is laid upon another, and it under- goes a second pressure. This operation is repeated five or six times, and the sheets are separated from one another between each application of the screw press. They are after- PAPER. 123 wards hung up to dry in rooms where there is a fresh current of air. In this state the paper is absorbent like blotting paper ; to tit it for writing, it is sized. Size is made of vellum 1 shavings boiled in water, with sulphate of zinc and alum finely pounded. After the paper is sized, it is again pressed four or five times, and hung up to dry as before. It is then told into quires, and sent to the stationer, who prepares it for sale. The most ancient kind of paper was made from the Papyrus, a species of reed growing on the banks of the Nile, from whence our name paper. Leaves also were employed at a very early period for the purpose of preserving and transmitting the opinions and experiences of man- kind ; hence originated the word folio, (folium being the latin for leaf) and also the meaning of leaf as applied to a book. The use of bark suc- ceeded that of leaves, generally the inner bark of the lime tree : it was called by the Romans liber, and they gave the name of liber to a book., and we have adopted the term library for a number of books. For the convenience of car- rying, this substance was rolled up, and in this form was denominated volumen, from which is clearly derived our volume. Our Saxon ancestors employed the bark of the beech, which they termed hoc, and which we have transferred t& 1 Vellum is the prepared skin of young calves, 124 FIFTH SERIES.— LESSON XXX. our book. It is probable that skins of animals were the first substances upon which characters were written. LESSON XXX. WOOL. The clothing manufactured from wool, is par- ticularly adapted to cold countries ; not that it communicates warmth, but, being a non- conductor of heat, it prevents that of our bodies from escaping. Wool is the hairy covering of sheep ; it is taken from the living animal in the summer season, by an operation called sheep- shearing, and in that state is called the fleece. The wool of the Spanish sheep is particularly fine ; in that country a flock often contains a thousand sheep. The first operation performed on the raw wool is to pick and sort it ; this is particularly need- ful, as the same sheep produces wool of various qualities. It is next cleansed from its impurities, and committed to the wool-comber, who, by means of iron-spiked combs of different degrees of fineness, draws out the fibres, smooths, and straightens them. It is then prepared for the spinner 9 who forms it into threads, the more COTTON. 125 twisted of which are called worsted, and the less twisted yarn. It is then employed in the manu- facture of every description of hosiery, stuffs, carpets, flannels, blankets, and cloths. England manufactures so much woollen clothing, that it was formerly considered the staple commodity of the country ; and to mark its importance, the Lord Chancellor sits upon a woolsack. LESSON XXXL COTTON. The Cotton plant is cultivated in the East and West Indies; it produces a beautiful yellow flower ; and the seed vessel is a pod containing a white downy substance which surrounds the seed. This is picked by the hand and separated from the seeds by a machine which at the same time loosens its fibres ; afterwards it is packed in large bags, and sent by the planter to the manufacturer. It is then carded ; that is, wound upon cylindrical cards, worked by machinery ; afterwards it is roved, by which process the loose fibres are removed with an instrument resembling a comb ; it is then twisted and drawn out into threads or yarn and sent to the weaver. It is made into muslins, calicoes, stockings, quilts, corduroys, cS^c. The machinery employed in 126 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XXXII. England in carding, roving, and spinning, is quite unequalled, and occasions our cotton goods to be much sought after. In India and China, some of the plants produce a buff cotton, of which nankeens are manufactured. LESSON XXXII. FLAX. Flax is a slender annual plant with a hollow fibrous stem, bearing a delicate blue flower. Linen, lace, and canvass are made of its fibrous bark. When the flax is gathered, it is exposed for some time to the influence of the sun to ripen the seeds ; which are afterwards threshed out, and an oil called linseed oil 1 is expressed from them. The stalks are then loosely tied in bundles, fastened to poles, and placed in stagnant pools, where they are left to steep for about fifteen days. By the fermentation which ensues, the bark or flaxy substance becomes separated, when the stalks are thinly spread on the grass, in which state they exhale a very disagreeable and pernicious odour. After this operation they are beaten with a mallet, which removes the pulpy substance and loosens the fibres; these are 1 From lin um, the Latin name of the plant. FLAX. 127 then drawn through a comb with coarse iron teeth, and afterwards through one with finer teeth. The refuse is called tow, and is the substance used to make packing-cloths, and for the caulk- ing of ships. The operation of spinning, which next succeeds, is drawing out several of the fibres and twisting them ; this was formerly done by means of a distaff, but now it is per- formed in a more expeditious manner by machi- nery. Weaving is the final operation ; it may be regarded as a finer kind of matting. To perform it, the threads which compose the length of a piece of cloth are first disposed in order, and strained by weights to a proper tightness ; this is called the vjarp. These threads are sepa- rated by an instrument called a reed, into two sets, each composed of every other thread ; and while by the working of a treadle, each set of threads is thrown alternately up and down, the cross threads called the woof ox weft are inserted between them, by means of a little instrument sharp at both ends, called a shuttle, which the weaver briskly throws from one hand to the other, and which carries the thread with it. This is the most simple kind of weaving. The quality of the flax depends upon the soil in which it is cultivated ; but the fineness of the thread in some degree upon the dexterity of the spinner. Egypt was celebrated at a very early period for the manufacture of linen. 128 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XXXIII. LESSON XXXIII. HEMP. Hemp is obtained from an annual plant which thrives in a rich moist soil in temperate climates. It is much cultivated in Norfolk and Suffolk : and in Russia it forms one of the principal articles of commerce. The stalk consists chiefly of a tissue of fibres joined together by a soft sub- stance, which easily rots. At the proper season it is gathered and steeped in water ; then beaten in order to loosen the bark from the fibres. This is completed by an operation called card- ing, performed with an instrument resembling a comb. It is next spun, and then passes into the hands of the ropemaker or weaver, according to the use for which it is designed. The extreme toughness, pliability, and dura- bility of hemp, fit it peculiarly for purposes where great strength is required, as the cordage and tackle of our vessels and fishing nets. It is computed that the sails and cordage of a first- rate man of war, require as much hemp for their construction, as would be the yearly produce of four hundred and twenty-four acres of land. SILK. 129 LESSON XXXIV. SILK. Silk is the production of a caterpillar, and constitutes the covering in which it envelopes itself when it changes from the larva state to that of the chrysalis. From the latter inani- mate condition it emerges as a moth, and having laid its eggs, it soon dies. The cocoon, or web of the silk- worm, is an oval ball of silk, which it has spun out of a substance secreted in its own body. The shades of the silk vary from the palest straw colour to deep yellow. In a state of nature the silk- worms form their cocoons upon the mulberry- tree itself, where they shine like golden fruits amidst the leaves ; but the colder climates of Europe will not allow of their being raised in the open air. They are in consequence kept in warm but airy rooms, and fed with mulberry- leaves till they are fully grown. They change their skin several times while they are in the caterpillar state ; at length they become so full of the silky matter, that it gives them a yellowish tinge : they then cease to eat. At this indi- cation of their approaching change, twigs are placed over them upon little stages of wicker- K 130 FIFTH SERIES.— LESSON XXXV. work, on which they immediately begin to form their webs. When these are finished, the downy matter on the outside called flos, is taken off, and the cocoons are thrown into warm water to dissolve the glutinous particles which had caused the silk to adhere : the ends of the threads being found, several are joined together and wound upon a reel; this is called raw silk. It next undergoes an operation to cleanse it, and render it more supple, after which it is twisted into threads of different degrees of fineness, as required by the weaver ; in this state it is called thrown silk. The excellence of silk as a material for dress consists in its strength, lightness, lustre, and its being capable of taking the finest dyes. Silk may be made into substances varying in thickness, from the finest transparent gauze to the richest velvets and brocades. Our manufac- turers are supplied with silk chiefly from China, Persia, and Italy. France is the most nor- thern climate in which silk is produced in any quantity. LESSON XXXV. FELT. Felt is the substance of which hats are made. It is composed of hairs ; those of the beaver are chiefly used by hatters. The operation of feltifig FELT. 131 depends upon a peculiar construction in all hairs* which, however smooth and even they may appear, have in reality a tiled or scaly texture on the surface. The scales are so placed, that they yield to the finger if drawn along the hair from the root to the point, but present a resist- ance when moved in a contrary direction. In consequence of this peculiarity, if a hair be seized in the middle between two fingers and rubbed, the root will gradually recede and the point will approach the ringers, exhibiting a progressive motion towards the root; the imbri- cated surface preventing all motion in the oppo- site way. From this property, hairs, when beaten or pressed together, begin to move in the direction of the root, and are disposed to catch hold and twist round each other, and thus to cohere into a continuous mass, which is called felt. Curled hairs entwine themselves more closely into one another than those which are straight, though flexible, as these latter recede from the root in a direct line. The hatter spreads them over the surface of his coarser cloth, and when pressed, these fine straight hairs moving in the direction of their roots, form a coating; their base being inserted in the felt, while their extremities remain free. It is in consequence of this tendency to felt, that woollen cloths increase in density, and contract in dimensions by being washed ; and also that they do not ravel out when cut. The Zetlanders, availing them- K 2 132 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XXXVI. selves of this peculiar construction of hairs, felt their wool by putting it into narrow inlets of the sea, where it is exposed to the continual motions of the tides. LESSON XXVI. PORCELAIN. Clay and flint are the chief ingredients of por- celain. The first gives the plasticity and tenacity requisite for the moulding it into a shape, the latter renders it hard, and allows of a slight degree of vitrification. The following is the usual process carried on in our English manu- factories of China. Flints are first calcined, then mixed in certain proportions with Cornish granite, 1 and ground to a very fine powder ; water is poured upon this mixture, and it is twice strained through silken sieves. It is then boiled till it is of the consistency of cream, and the watery particles being evaporated, it becomes a tough paste. A portion of this substance is then placed upon a turning wheel ; and moulded by the hand with a precision and rapidity, that 1 It is to the large proportion of Felspar in a state of decomposition that Cornish granite owes the preference which is given to it. PORCELAIN. 133 practice only can give. Vessels of a circular shape are formed in this manner, as bowls, plates, cups and saucers ; utensils of other forms are made in moulds of gypsum, the pores of which absorbing the moisture of the clay, the vessels are contracted in size, and in consequence may be easily loosened from the mould. Each vessel thus formed is placed in a separate clay case. The furnace is filled with these, and then bricked closely up, and they are subjected to a red heat for sixty hours. The temperature is then gradually lowered, and the porcelain is withdrawn ; in this state, it is called biscuit, and is white, dull, and porous. This process greatly diminishes the size of the vessels ; it fits them to receive the blue colour, called cobalt, 1 which has the appearance of a dirty grey till glazed. The glazing consists of lead and glass, ground to an impalpable powder, mixed in water with some other ingredients which are kept secret. The biscuit is merely dipped into the glazing, and is then baked again for forty hours. It is now ready to receive the other colours, and the gilding which the pattern may require. It is then baked a third time for ten hours or more. Lastly, the gilding is burnished with bloodstone or agate, and the china is ready for the ware- room. The colours are changed by baking, appearing very different when first laid on. 1 Cobalt is an oxide of the metal of that name. 134 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XXXVIJ. ON METALS. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. In these lessons on the common metals, it is advisable to present the specimens to the class in their several natural and artificial states, that is, the ores, and the native and manufactured metals. The plan of writing down the list of qualities has been again adopted with the metals, as they lead to a new range of properties which form so decidedly the characteristic distinctions of the substances. LESSON XXXVII. GOLD. Qualities. It is a perfect metal, malleable. x 1. 1 A solid piece of gold and some leaf gold should be presented to the class, and the extreme lightness and thinness of the leaf may be felt. Teacher. How was the gold made so thin 9 Children. It was beaten out. Teacher. With what? GOLD. 135 It is ductile. 2. tenacious. 3. heavy. 4. indestructible. , fusible. incombustible, except by electricity, soft, compared with other metals, pliable, compact, yellow, solid, opaque, brilliant, reflective, sonorous. Not affected by any acid but aqua regia. 1 Children. With a hammer. All things that can be thus extended by beating, are called malleable from Lat. Mall eus, a hammer. Teacher. Could glass be thus beaten out ? Could chalk ? Camphor ? What quality prevents them from being malleable ? Children. Glass is brittle. Chalk is friable. Teacher. What quality in gold then renders it mal- leable ? Children. Its being tenacious. Teacher. What other quality in gold arises from its being tenacious ? Children. It is ductile. Teacher. Ductile is derived from Lat. Due tills, capable of being drawn out. 1 Aqua regia (royal water) is a mixture of muriatic acid and nitric acid. 136 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XXXVII. It is a perfect metal, because it does not lose any of its weight when fused, nor suffer any change. Most metals become oxydated. 1 When the children understand fully the dif- ferent qualities, the teacher may mention to them the facts that prove the extraordinary de- gree in which the peculiar qualities exist in the metal. 1. Malleable. A grain of gold, the size of a pin's head, may be beaten out to cover a space of fifty square inches. 2. Ductile. A grain of gold can be drawn out to cover a wire of 352 fett in length ; a guinea can be drawn out to reach nine miles and a half. 3. Tenacious. A wire one-tenth of an inch in diameter will support 500 pounds without breaking. 4. Heavy. It is nineteen times heavier than water of the same bulk. Uses of Gold. When alloyed 2 with copper, gold is used as coin, and for ornamental purposes; for the latter it is fitted by its brilliancy and beauty, and also because it is not liable to tarnish. 1 Combined with a certain portion of oxygen. 2 The combination of metals with each other are called in chemistry, alloys ; but this term is commonly employed to designate those substances that lessen the value of any with which they are united. GOLD. 137 The gold used in coinage, called standard gold, consists of a combination of about twenty- two parts gold, and two copper. Gold of the new standard, which is stamped at Goldsmith's Hall, consists of only eighteen parts gold, and six copper. Gold thread is made by covering silk or silver with gold beaten very thin. Gilding is the art of covering the surface of a substance with gold, this is effected by applying it either in the state of leaf, or liquid gold, to a surface covered by a cement. Quicksilver unites with gold, communicating to it a portion of its own fluidity ; it has from this circumstance been used in gilding buttons, an effect which is produced very rapidly by the following process. The metals are mixed to- gether, and the buttons immersed in the com- pound. They are then exposed to great heat, by which the quicksilver is evaporated, and the gold is left upon the buttons. The purple colour used in painting porcelain is obtained from gold. Gold is beaten into leaves upon a smooth block of marble fitted into a wooden frame about two feet square ; on three sides there is a high ledge, and the front has a flap of leather attached to it, which the workman uses as an apron to preserve the fragments that fall off. There are three kinds of animal membrane used in the operation. For interlaying with the gold 133 FIFTH SERIES — LESSON XXXVII. at first, the smoothest and closest vellum is jj procured; and when the gold becomes thin, [ this is exchanged for much finer skin, made of the entrails of oxen prepared for this purpose, and hence called gold beater's skin ; the whole j is covered with parchment to prevent the ham- mer from injuring it. After the gold has been reduced to a sufficient degree of thinness, it is put between paper which has been well smoothed and rubbed with red bole irf order to prevent it adhering to the gold. Geographical and Geological situation of Gold. Gold is found principally in hot climates, either native or as an ore. A metal is called native when it occurs in nature pure, and an ore when mixed with other substances. Gold is found in mines, in Brazil, Peru, and Mexico. Part of the Western coast of Africa is called the Gold Coast, from the gold dust brought down by the natives to trade with. A great quantity of gold is obtained in the form of fine sand, from American and African rivers ; and in small quantities from the Danube, the Rhine, and the Rhone : it is supposed to be carried down by the mountain torrents. The wandering tribes of gipsies employ themselves in washing it from the beds of the European rivers. The Himalaya mountains in Asia are rich in gold. It sometimes occurs in the veins which run SILVER, 139 through mountains and sometimes in rounded masses in soils that are evidently the ruins of rocks. The mines which formerly yielded the largest quantities of gold were those of Peru and Lima ; the principal of Europe are those of Hungary and Saltzburg. The mode of ex- tracting gold from the ore, is by reducing the whole to fine powder, and mixing it with quick- silver. The latter unites with every particle of the gold, but being incapable of forming a combination with any but metallic substances^ it separates the gold from the earth with which it is intermixed. The quicksilver which has absorbed the gold is then evaporated by means of heat, leaving the pure metal in the vessel. LESSON XXXVIII. SILVER. Qualities. It is malleable. 1. ductile. 2. tenacious. 3. heavy. 4. indestructible, fusible, soft, flexible. 140 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XXXVIII. It is a perfect metal, opaque, white, solid, compact, natural, brilliant, reflective, sweetly sonorous, not affected by common acids. 1. Malleable. Silver can be reduced to a degree of thinness, nearly equal to that of which gold is capable. 2. Ductile. It can also be drawn out to the finest wire. 3. Tenacious. A wire one-tenth of an inch in thickness will support 377 pounds without breaking. 4. Heavy. It is about eleven times heavier than water. Uses of Silver. Silver is used for coin, and is then combined with copper, to render it harder and better adapted to receive a fine and sharp impression on being cast. The same alloy is employed for ornamental purposes. Silver is much used as a casing to copper utensils, on account of acids extracting a poison SILVER. 141 from that metal, also to render them more pleas- ing to the sight. The most permanent plating is effected by taking two thin plates of silver and copper, the former in the proportion of one to twelve of the latter, a little powdered borax is placed between the two metals, to promote their fusion, and then after being exposed to a white heat, they will be found firmly united ; the substance is passed between rollers, till the whole is of the proper thickness for the intended manufacture. Silver dissolved in aqua-fortis, (nitric acid) yields crystals, which being afterwards melted in crucibles, form what is called lunar caustic, This preparation is of considerable value in surgical operations, being employed to burn away diseased flesh ; and also for consuming warts, wens, and other excrescences on the skin. Indelible or permanent ink, used for marking linen, is made by dissolving nitrate of silver (lunar caustic) in water, and adding gum. The yellow colour employed in painting porcelain is obtained from silver. Geological and Geographical Situation of Silver. Silver is found both native and as an ore, in mines and veins. America is the country richest in silver mines. It is also found in Saxony, Bohemia, Norway, Hungary, and England : but the mines of Mexico and Peru furnish annu- 142 FIFTH SERIES.— LESSON XXXVIII. ally ten times more than all those of Europe together. So poisonous are the exhalations from the mines of Peru, that many thousands of Indians have perished in them, and the cattle that graze on the outside are affected by their malignant vapours. The quantity found in England is not great ; it is taken from the lead mines of Cumberland, Cornwall, and Yorkshire. A large block was found at Fryberg in Saxony, upon which Duke Albert took his dinner. When melted, it yielded 44000 pounds of pure silver. The ores of silver are very numerous, and various methods are employed in different coun- tries to separate this metal from its ore. In Mexico and Peru the mineral is pounded, roasted, washed, and then mixed with mercury in vessels filled with water, a mill being em- ployed for the purpose of more perfectly agitat- ing the liquid. This causes the silver to unite with the mercury, and then being submitted to heat, the latter is evaporated. The pure metal is afterwards melted and cast into bars or insets. QUICKSILVER OR MERCURY. 143 LESSON XXXIX. QUICKSILVER OR MERCURY. Qualities. It is heavy. 1. fluid. 2. cold. 3. divisible. 4. 1 volatile when heated, white. brilliant. 5. opaque. least tenacious of all bodies, dilatable by heat, medicinal, natural, inanimate, mineral. 1. Weight. Nearly fourteen times heavier than water. It is the heaviest known fluid. 2. Fluid. It always retains its fluidity in our temperature, but near the poles it congeals, and then is malleable, ductile, and tenacious. 3. Cold. It is the coldest of all fluids, and the hottest when boiling. 1 Volatile, from Lat. Vol are, to fly. 144 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XXXIX. 4. It is capable of division, by the slightest effort, into an indefinite number of particles, each of a spherical shape. 5. The peculiar brilliancy of metals has given rise to the term metallic lustre. Uses of Quicksilver. Quicksilver penetrates and softens other metals, losing its own fluidity, and forming a kind of paste called amalgam. This affinity or attraction that it has for other metals, makes it exceed- ingly useful in separating them from substances with which they are found combined ; they are drawn from their ores and unite with the mercury, and the latter being volatilized, the pure metal remains. Quicksilver is easily affected by the atmosphere, and is on this account used in Thermometers and Barometers. 1 The Ther- mometer is an instrument constructed in the fol- lowing manner : — a tube of glass, terminating in a hollow ball which contains mercury, is plunged into boiling water, which causes the mercury to expand and rise to a certain height. At this point, which is called boiling heat, the tube is broken off, and hermetically sealed ; 2 the freezing 1 Barometer from Bap os (bar os) weight, and ixerp ov (metron) a measure. Thermometer from 6e$fi os (thermos) (hot.) 2 In order to seal any thing hermetically, the neck of a glass tube is heated till on the point of melting, and then with a pair of hot pincers it is closely twisted together, by QUICKSILVER. 145 point is then ascertained and marked, and the intervening space graduated. The Thermometer, by marking the expansion and contraction of the quicksilver, indicates the increase and decrease of heat and cold in the atmosphere. To form the Barometer, a glass tube open at one end, and filled with quicksilver, is plunged with its open end downwards into a bowl con- taining some of the same fluid. Part of the mercury in the tube flows into the vessel, leav- ing a space to which the air cannot gain access. A vacuum being thus formed, the atmosphere acts upon the mercury in the bowl, when heavy, causing it to rise in the tube, and when light, (the pressure being decreased,) allowing it to descend. The Barometer, by thus shewing the weight of the air, indicates the probability of wet or dry weather. For when the atmosphere is light, it no longer supports the vapour and clouds which float in it, and they consequently descend towards the earth; but when the air is more dense, they are borne up, and we have fine weather. The elevation of mountains is also ascertained by means of the Barometer, for as it is known that the rarity of the atmosphere increases in proportion to the ascent, the height is easily calculated. which means the air is excluded. Hermetically, is derived from Hermes, the deity of ancient mythology who was thought to preside over the arts and sciences, particularly chemistry. 146 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XXXIX. Quicksilver is also used for coating mirrors?. The process is effected in the following manner : a sheet of tin-foil the size of the plate of glass is placed evenly on a smooth block of stone, over this is poured some quicksilver, which is carefully spread upon it with a feather or rubber of linen. Tin in amalgamating with mercury, quickly forms an oxide of a black appearance ; this being removed, more of the fluid is poured upon it. The glass is then held horizontally, and carefully slid over the amalgam, sweeping before it the superfluous mercury, and any more oxide that may have formed. Weights are then placed upon the glass, and after having remained several days, the mixture adheres firmly and forms the mirror. Vermillion used in colouring sealing-wax, and the medicine called calomel, are preparations of this metal. Geographical and Geological situation of Quicksilver. Quicksilver is found in the native state, as globules, in the cavities of mines ; but it is most frequently combined with sulphur, forming the mineral called Cinnabar, which is of a red colour. The quicksilver mines of Idria are said to yield annually 100 tons ; those of Spain still more ; but the mines .of Peru are the richest. The mines of Idria were accidentally dis- LEAD. 147 covered about thee hundred years since. That part of the country was then much inhabited by coopers ; one of the men, when retiring from work in the evening, placed a new tub under a dropping spring, to try if it would hold water, andj when he came in the morning he found it so heavy that he could scarcely move it. On examination, he perceived a shining ponderous fluid at the bottom, which proved to be quick- silver. When this circumstance was made known, a society was formed to discover and work the mine from whence the mercury had issued. In some parts of the mine it flows in small streams, so that in six hours as much as thirty-six pounds have been collected : in other parts it is found diffused in small globules. LESSON XL. LEAD. Qualities. It is heavy. 1 . fusible. 2. bright, when first melted or cut. malleable, ductile, very soft. 3. pliable. L 2 148 FIFTH SERIES — LESSON XL. It is livid, blueish grey. easily calcined, that is, reduced by heat to a friable substance, solid. sometimes amorphous. sometimes crystallized. opaque. mineral. liable to tarnish. 4. inelastic. natural. It makes a grey streak on paper. It boils and evaporates at a great heat. 1. Heavy. It is eleven times heavier than water ; rather heavier than silver. 2. It melts at a much lower temperature than the other metals. 3. It is the softest of all metals. 4. Lead is not much altered by being exposed either to air or water, though the brightness of its surface is soon lost. Probably a thin stra- tum of oxide is formed on the surface which defends the rest of the metal from corrosion. Use of Lead. The calx l of lead is the basis of many colours, which are obtained from it by different degrees 1 Calx is the dross formed on the surface of lead when fused. This name is applied by chemists to those sub- stances which have been reduced by burning to a friable LEAD. 149 of heat. Red lead and white lead, so much used in paints, are the calces of lead. They are soluble in oil, are all very poisonous, and occasion the ill health to which painters are subject. Any acid will extract a poison from lead, and therefore the use of it should be avoided in culinary operations. It is employed in glazing and pottery. When rolled between iron cylinders to a requisite and uniform degree of thinness, lead is employed to cover the roofs of houses and churches ; but in case of fire, its melting is attended with much danger. It is also used for gutters and pipes of houses, and for cisterns and reservoirs for water, because it does not rust. The great softness of lead, and the ease with which it is fused, are the 'properties which have brought it so much into use. The persons who work it are called plumbers. 1 The solder they use as a cement, is an alloy of lead and tin, in the proportion of two parts of the former to one of the latter. Great quantities of lead are consumed in making shot. The metal for this purpose is alloyed with arsenic, to render it more hard and brittle, and capable of assuming a perfectly spherical shape. Shot are formed by dropping state. The operation by which this effect is produced is called calcination. It is more general now to term metallic bodies when calcined, Oxides. 1 Plumb er, from the Latin plumb um, lead. 150 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XL. the melted alloy into water from a considerable height, through an iron or copper frame, per- forated with round holes, which are larger or smaller according to the required size of the shot. Mixed with antimony, lead is used for printing-types ; and with tin and copper, it forms pewter. Geological and Geographical situation of Lead. Lead abounds in England and Wales, parti- cularly in the counties of Derby, Northumber- land, Somerset, Cornwall, and Devon. It is plentiful also in Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France, and America. It has lately been im- ported in such quantities from Spain, as greatly to lower its price in England. It is very much doubted whether it is ever found native ; it occurs frequently combined with sulphur, when it is called galena. It is supposed that some of our lead mines, which are perhaps the most important in the world, were worked by the Romans. When the ore is brought out of the mines it is sorted and washed, to free it from dirt and rubbish ; it is then spread, and the best pieces separated. After the ore, by picking and washing, has been sufficiently cleansed from extraneous matter, it is roasted l in a kind of kiln, to free it from 1 Roasting is the process by which the volatile parts of an ore are evaporated. Smelting is that by which the pure COPPER. 151 the sulphur usually combined with it. The next process is to mix it with a quantity of coke, and submit it to the smelting furnace. In this there are tapholes, which, when the lead is melted, are opened, to allow it to run in a fluid state into an iron vessel. The dross which floats on its surface is skimmed off, and the metal is taken out by ladles, and poured into cast-iron moulds with round ends. It is then called pig lead, and is fit for use. LESSON XLI. COPPER. Qualities. It is heavy. 1. tenacious. 2. very sonorous. 3. fusible. 4. elastic. 5. capable of extreme divisibility. (3. malleable, ductile, compact. metal is separated from the earthy particles combined with it in the ore. This is done by throwing the whole into a furnace, and mixing with it substances that will combine with the earthy parts ; the metal being the heaviest, falls to the bottom, and runs out by the proper openings, in its pure metallic state. 152 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XLI. It is opaque. orange brown colour. mineral. sometimes crystallized. sometimes amorphous. brilliant. reflective. sapid. hard. odorous. solid. medicinal. easily corroded. 1. Heavy. Copper is eight times heavier than water. 2. Tenacious. A wire one tenth of an inch in thickness, will support two hundred and ninety-nine pounds and a half without breaking. 3. It is the most deeply sonorous of all metals. 4. It is more easily fused than iron, but less so than gold or silver. 5. It is the most elastic metal, next to iron. 6. A grain dissolved in ammonia, will give a perceptible colour to more than 500,000 times its weight of water. The uses of Copper, The uses of copper are numerous and im- portant. When rolled into sheets between iron COPPER. 153 cylinders, it is used to cover the roofs of houses, especially arsenals and manufactories, where there is liability to fire. The bottoms of ships are coppered in order to make them sail faster, and to prevent shell-fish from perforating the wood. Copper is much used for cooking utensils, but great care is necessary, for should any acid or even water be allowed to stand some time in the vessels, a poison is extracted ; but while boiling, this evil does not arise. It is customary, in order to prevent any danger, to line copper vessels with tin. Copper is used in the manu- factories of gunpowder, because it does not, like iron, give out sparks by collision. Plates of copper are sometimes engraved with a sharp instrument called a burin; sometimes they are corroded with aqua fortis ; 1 in the latter case, the copper is covered with wax, on which the design is sketched with a pointed instrument, the aqua fortis reaches the copper just in those places where the wax has been removed by the sketching, and eats into it. Verdigris is a rust of copper, usually made from that metal by corroding it with vinegar. There is a large manufactory at Montpelier in France, where verdigris is prepared in the following- manner : — copper-plates and husks of grapes are placed alternately one upon another; the latter speedily corrode the surface of the metal. 1 Aqua fortis (strong water) is nitric acid diluted with water. 154 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XLI. The verdigris thus formed, is scraped off as it collects on the copper; it is afterwards dried, and packed in casks or bags. It is chiefly employed in dying, and is a most virulent poison. There are several alloys of copper. Brass is the most important ; it is compounded of zinc and copper, in the proportion of three parts of the former to one of the latter. This is a very beau- tiful and useful substance ; it does not rust so easily as copper; is more ductile than either that metal or iron, and is therefore used in the construc- tion of musical and mathematical instruments, and in clock-work. Sieves and blinds are woven of brass wire of extreme fineness. Brass is used both for purposes of ornament and use. Copper alloyed with tin forms Bronze ; it is remark- able that when these two metals are melted together, the compound so produced is heavier than the weight of the two metals taken sepa- rately. Bronze is very useful from its being extremely hard, durable, and sonorous: it is fabricated into cannon-balls, statutes, &c. The metal of which cannon are made is also an alloy of copper with tin. Bell-metal consists of three parts copper and one tin. Geographical and Geological situation of Copper. Copper is found in Sweden, Saxony, America, and Great Britain. It was one of the metals COPPER. 155 earliest known : the Bible mentions workers in brass before the flood. It is found in a great variety of forms ; some- times in masses of pure metal, but more frequently combined with other substances, particularly sulphur. The copper mines of Anglesea are very productive ; they are situated on the top of a mountain, and form an enormous cavity more than 500 yards long, 100 broad, and 100 deep. The ore is obtained from the mine either by pick- axes, or by blasting the rock with gun- powder. It is then broken with a hammer into small pieces, an operation which chiefly employs women and children. After this, it is piled on a kiln, to the upper parts of which flues are attached, that communicate with sulphur cham- bers. The kiln is covered, and the fires lighted in different parts, that the ore may undergo the process of roasting. The whole mass gradually kindles, and the sulphur which is combined with the ore being expelled in fumes by the heat, is conveyed through the flues to the sulphur chamber. This process occupies from three to ten months, according to the size of the kilns. When the operation is complete, or the ore is freed from the sulphur, it is submitted to the smelting houses, where by the intense heat it undergoes, the pure metal is forced off in a fluid state. 156 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XLII. LESSON XLII. IRON. Qualities. It is elastic. 1. ductile. 2. heavy. 3. tenacious. 4. malleable, liable to rust, sonorous, mineral, fusible, hard. livid grey-colour, bright, reflective, solid. susceptible of a high polish, cold. sometimes amorphous, sometimes crystallized. 1. In the state of steel it is the most elastic of all metals. 2. Iron is more ductile than gold ; it may be drawn into a wire as fine as the human hair. IRON. 157 3. It is the lightest of the common metals except tin ; between seven and eight times heavier than water. 4. Most tenacious of the metals. A wire about one-tenth of an inch in diameter will support 650 pounds without breaking. Uses of Iron. Iron is the most useful of all metals, and man very early became acquainted with its value. Moses speaks of furnaces of iron and of the ores from which it was extracted. By means of this metal the earth has been cultivated, houses and cities built, and without it few arts could be practised. Iron is very abundant in nature, but it is always found mixed with some other substance. It is then called iron-stone. Sometimes it is combined with clay, at other times with lime, or with flint. In order to separate the iron from its ore, intense heat is required ; either pure clay, lime or silex remain stubborn in the hottest fires, but when mixed in proper proportions, the one assists in the fusion of the other ; therefore there is always thrown into the furnace with the iron-stone, some earth that will combine with that in the iron-stone. The intense heat of the furnace is kept up by means of a continual supply of air, rushing into it from immense bellows, worked by machinery. The lime, clay, or flint, unite and form a kind 158 FIFTH SERIES, — LESSON XLII. of slag which floats on the surface. At the same time the carbon, or pure charcoal of the fuel, aided by the limestone, melts the iron, which being heavier than the other substances, falls to the bottom of the furnace, and remains there till the workmen let it out by a hole made at the bottom of the furnace, and plugged with sand. When the workman judges that there is a sufficient quantity of the iron fused, he dis- places the plug with an iron rod, and the melted iron runs out like a stream of liquid fire, and is conveyed into furrows made in sand, where it cools ; the pieces formed in the principal furrows are called sows, those in the smaller furrows branching from them, pigs. In this state it takes the name of cast iron, and from the pro- cess it has undergone it is become extremely hard, and having lost its tenacity, it resists the hammer and the file, and is very brittle ; it is of a dark grey or blackish colour. It is used for the backs of chimnies, grates, boilers, pipes, rail-roads, common cannon balls, &c. Cast iron is converted into wrought iron by a process called blooming ; it is thrown into a furnace and kept melted by fire, it remains in this situation for about two hours, a workman being continually employed in stirring it, till by means of the heat of the air in the furnace, the greater part of the carbon is burnt out of it. It thus acquires by degrees consistency and tenacity, and congeals into a mass. It is taken IRON. 159 out of the furnace whilst hot, and violently beaten by a large hammer, worked by ma- chinery ; in this manner it is formed into bars of iron. The value of wrought iron in ma- chinery, and tools of all descriptions, is in- calculable. Steel is prepared from wrought iron in the following manner ; the bars of iron are kept in contact with ignited charcoal for several hours in earthen crucibles, from which the air is excluded. Steel, if heated to redness, and then suffered to cool slowly, becomes soft and pliable ; if plunged while hot into cold water, it is rendered susceptible of a high polish, and acquires such extreme hardness as even to scratch glass, while at the same time it becomes elastic and brittle. Its softness and ductility may however be restored by heating it again and cooling it slowly. Steel varies in colour under the influence of heat; first it assumes a straw colour, then a light yellow ; purple, violet, red, deep blue succeed, and last of all a bright blue. These hues indicate the different tempers which steel acquires, from that proper for com- mon files, to that requisite for the finely elastic springs of watches. Steel is used for all kinds of edged tools, in which keenness is necessary, it is also much employed for ornamental pur- poses, on account of the elegant polish which it is capable of taking. In medicine, steel is valuable as a tonic. Waters which pass over 160 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XLII. iron and become impregnated with it, are called chalybeate l waters ; those of Tunbrige and Hampstead are of this nature. Steel is a combination of iron, and a small portion of carbon. Cast iron contains a greater portion of carbon, and is probably saturated with it. Cast iron is converted into wrought iron, by burning away the carbon, and wholly depriving it of its oxygen. Plumbago, or black lead, which is employed in the manufacture of pencils, is an ore of iron, containing nine parts of carbon to one of the metal ; sufficient is found in Cumberland to supply the trade of England. The bronze colour used in Porcelain painting is an oxide of iron. Meteoric stones, which have been the subject of so much conjecture, and which are sometimes believed to be ejected from volcanoes in the moon, are native iron ; a fine specimen on the stairs of the British Museum has been cut to shew this. Iron is very valuable from the magnetical properties it may acquire. By these it enables the mariner to steer across the ocean, the travel- ler to direct his course with safety in the pathless desert, and the miner to guide his researches after subterraneous treasures. The loadstone or natural magnet, is an oxide of iron ; it com- municates its powers to bars of iron or steel, 1 Chalyb eate from % a ^ V} P (chalyb s) iron. IRON. 161 when placed in contact with them. The arti- ficial magnet is now always used ; as it possesses and retains all the properties of the loadstone. The qualities which render it useful, are, its attracting iron, and its polarity, or the power by which it points to the poles when freely suspended. One end invariably turns to the North, and the other to the South, except when it approaches the pole ; there the direc- tive power ceases altogether, which circum- stance constitutes one of the great difficulties in navigating the Arctic Seas. Geological amd Geographical situation of Iron. Iron is the most universally diffused of the metals. It is found in every country, in greater or less quantites ; but England, France, Sweden and Russia, are richer in this metal than the other parts of Europe. It is very rarely met with in a native state, but generally as an oxide, or in combination with Sulphuric or Carbonic Acid. M 162 FIFTH SERIES.— LESSON XLITI. LESSON XLIII. TIN. Qualities. It is is heavy. 1. soft. 2. malleable. 3. ductile. fusible. white. opaque. solid. brilliant. very little elastic. pliable. easily calcined. natural. mineral. reflective. sonorous, makes a crackling noise. dilatable by heat. 1. It is seven times heavier than water : yet the lightest of the ductile metals. 2. It is softer than silver, but harder than lead. 3. Tin may be beaten into sheets the 1000th part of an inch in thickness. TIN. 163 Uses of Tin. Tin is chiefly employed in the manufacture of culinary utensils; they are not however made of solid tin, but of what is called tin-plate, which is thus prepared. Thin iron plates are first cleansed completely, by washing them in water and sand; they are then dipped into melted tin, afterwards steeped in water acidulated with sulphuric acid. This process causes the tin not only to cover the surface of the iron plate, but to penetrate it so that the whole mass becomes of a whitish colour. Pins are made of brass wire tinned. When the pin is formed, a vessel is filled with strata or layers of tin plates between the brass pins, the vessel is then filled with water and some tartaric acid, by means of which the tin is dissolved ; after five or six hours boiling, the pins are found uniformly tinned. It is the zinc of the brass which has an affinity for the tin and forms the union which takes place. The pins are afterwards polished ; they are thrown into a tub containing a quan- tity of bran, which is set in motion by the turning of a shaft in the centre, the friction which the pins thus undergo renders them perfectly bright. The uses of tin in domestic purposes are very various, particularly when laid over other metals, as in stirrups, buckles, &c. The oxide of tin is used in dying. M 2 164 FIFTH SERIES.— LESSON XLIII. Tin forms alloys with several other metals. These compounds have been mentioned before; as bell-metal, pewter, bronze. Tin leaves, amalgamated with mercury, are used for silver- ing and plating other metals. Geographical and Geological situation of Tin. England, Germany, Chili, and Mexico, pro- duce the largest quantity of this metal. The tin mines of Cornwall were well known to the ancients ; and the Phoenicians are said to have traded with the Britons for it long before the birth of our Saviour. Native tin is never found, and its ore is of less common occurrence than that of iron. It occurs as an oxide, or mixed with sulphur and copper : chiefly in veins run- ning through granite and other rocks. When it is taken from the mine, it is broken into small pieces, and streams of water are passed over it, to free it from the earthy particles with which it is intermixed; it is then roasted and smelted, when the metal is poured out into quadrangular moulds of stone, and receives the name of block tin. COMPARISON OF METALS. 165 LESSON XLIV. COMPARISON OF METALS. Gold, a perfect metal, is the most precious. most compact. heaviest. Its weight is between nineteen and twenty times that of water. Silver, a perfect metal, is next in value to gold, and more useful ; its weight between ten and eleven times that of water. Quicksilver is fluid. easily volatilized. immalleable. Its weight is between thirteen and fourteen times that of water. Copper is the most sonorous. elastic except iron. Its weight is between eight and nine times that of water. Iron is the most elastic. tenacious. useful. ductile. Its weight is between seven and eight times that of water. 166 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XLV. Lead is the softest. most easily fused. Its weight is between eleven and twelve times that of water. Tin next to lead, is the softest of the metals ; it dilates most by heat ; it is the lightest, its weight being only seven times that of water. LESSON XLV. ON METALS IN GENERAL. Metals are simple elementary bodies, distin- guished by being heavier than all other sub- stances ; by possessing a peculiar lustre which is called the metallic lustre; by reflecting light and heat ; by their being opaque, fusible, mal- leable, tenacious, ductile, and generally elastic. Upon this last quality seems to depend their fitness for exciting sound, or sonorousness. Metals are capable of uniting with one another in a state of fusion ; this union is called an alloy. It is remarkable that by these combinations, metals undergo a considerable change in their properties, and acquire new ones not belonging to either of them when not united. Thus the weight of the alloy, or the two metals in com- bination, is sometimes very different from the METALS IN GENERAL. 167 weight of both the metals taken separately : an alloy of silver with copper or tin, or one of silver or gold with lead is heavier than the same quan- tities of those metals uncombined. Their ductility aud malleability are changed and generally impaired, the alloy becoming brittle, This is very remarkably the case with gold and lead when united, the latter of which, even in the trivial proportion of half a grain to an ounce of gold, renders the mass quite destitute of tenacity. The hardness of metals is varied by combina- tion. Gold, being united with a small quan- tity of copper, and silver, with a minute pro- portion of the same metal, acquire such an increase of hardness, that these additions are always made to gold or silver which is to be exposed to wear. By a small addition of gold, iron is said to gain so much hardness, as to be even superior to steel for the fabrication of cutting instruments. Change of colour is a common effect of the union of metals with each other. Arsenic, for example, which resembles steel, and copper, which has a red colour, afford by their union a compound, which has nearly the whiteness of silver. In order to ascertain how far the children have retained the knowledge communicated to them in these lessons, the following questions may be given to them to answer in writing : — 168 FIFTH SERIES. QUESTIONS ON THE METALS. GOLD. 1. What are the chief qualities of gold ? 2. What is its weight ? 3. Give a proof of its ductility. 4. tenacity. 5. malleability. 6. Upon what other quality does its mallea- bility depend ? 7. What qualities are directly opposed to malleability? 8. What is an alloy ? 9. Why is gold alloyed for the purpose of coinage ? 10. What metal is used as its alloy ? and in what proportion ? 11. How are buttons gilt? 12. Describe the manner of forming leaf gold. 13. In what state is gold found ? 14. What is an ore ? 15. What is meant by a native metal ? 16. In what countries is gold found ? 17. What people employ themselves in se- parating it from the sands of the European QUESTIONS ON THE METALS. 169 SILVER. 1. What are the chief properties of silver? 2. What is its weight ? 3. What degree of tenacity does it possess ? 4. What are the chief uses of silver ? 5. Upon what qualities do the uses of silver depend ? 6. Describe the operation of plating. 7. What is lunar caustic ? and what are its uses? 8. Give a geopraphical and geological account of silver. 9. Why are gold and silver called perfect metals ? QUICKSILVER. 1. What are the uses and properties of quick- silver ? 2. What is its weight ? 3. In what respect is it remarkable as a liquid ? 4. What effect does heat produce upon it ? 5. Under what circumstances does a change in its qualities take place ? and what is the change ? 6. What is an amalgam ? 7. Mention the uses of quicksilver. 170 FIFTH SERIES. 8. What are the properties that tit it for a barometer ? 9. What for a thermometer ? 10. How is a barometer made? and what is its use ? 11. How is a thermometer made? and what is its use ? 12. What colour is obtained from quicksilver ? 13. Where is quicksilver found ? 14. What circumstance led to the discovery of the mines of Idria ? LEAD. 1. What are the remarkable qualities of lead ? 2. What is its weight ? 3. What are the different effects which heat produces on lead ? 4. What are the chief uses of lead ? 5. Why is it used for reservoirs of water ? 6. How are shot made ? 7. What is the use of the oxides of lead ? 8. What are its alloys ? 9. In what state is lead found ? 10. What is lead called when found united with sulphur ? 11. Where is lead most abundant ? 12. Describe the process of roasting and smelting. QUESTIONS ON THE METALS. 171 COPPER. 1. What are the chief qualities of copper ? 2. What is its weight, and what its degree of tenacity ? 3. How is it proved to be capable of extreme divisibility ? 4. What are the uses of copper ? 4. What is verdigris ? and how is it made ? 6. What is the danger incurred by employing copper in kitchen utensils ? 7. What are the alloys of copper ? 8. In what respect is brass preferable to copper ? 9. Where is copper found, and in what states ? 10. Describe the copper mines in Anglesea, and the manner of extracting the metal from the ore. IRON. 1. What are the chief qualities of iron ? 2. What quality does it possess in a higher degree than any other metal ? 3. What is its weight and tenacity? 4. What are the different states in which iron is used ? 5. How is cast iron prepared ? 172 FIFTH SERIES. 6. What are its qualities and uses ? 7. How is wrought iron prepared ? 8. What are its qualities and uses ? 9. How is steel prepared ? 10. What are its qualities and uses ? 11 . What is meant by the temper of steel ? 12. What is plumbago? and what quality makes it useful ? 13. What is the geographical situation of iron ? and in what state is it found ? TIN. 1. What are the chief qualities of tin ? 2. What are the uses of tin ? 3. How is it prepared for use ? 4. How are pius tinned ? 5. What is block tin ? 6. Where is tin found ? LIME. 173 ON EARTHS. LESSON XLVI. LIME. The substance called Lime is never found pure in nature, owing to its great affinity for carbonic acid * and for water. All the earths of which lime forms the basis, are called calcareous.' 2 It is the most universally diffused of all substances, and one of the most abundant ; it is computed that it constitutes one eighth of the crust of the earth. In this distribution we have great cause to admire the wise and good providence of the Creator, as the utility of lime in various arts, in agriculture, in manufactures, and in medicine, is very great. Lime united with carbonic acid, forms common lime-stone, chalk, marble, &c. ; with sulphuric acid, it constitutes gypsum or alabaster; and with fluoric acid, fluor or Derby- shire spar. These are its most interesting com- 1 Carbon is charcoal in its purest and colourless state ; it is most abundant in the vegetable kingdom, and is chiefly obtained from wood. The diamond is the only- pure carbon that is known. United with oxygen, carbon forms carbonic acid. 2 Calcareous, from Latin calx, lime. 174 FIFTH SERIES.— LESSON XLVI. binations with mineral substances. It enters also into the composition of animal matter, as shells, bones, and the hard coverings of insects ; our bones contain 8 parts in 10 lime ; and the shells of birds' eggs, 9 parts in 10. Pure lime is procured from chalk, or lime- stone, by means of burning. Alternate layers of calcareous earth and fuel are arranged in a kiln ; a fire being kindled, the carbonic acid and water become volatilized, and are driven off, leaving the lime pure. It this state it is called quick lime, and is white, caustic, acrid, pungent, infusible ; corroding and destroying animal mat- ter. When water is poured upon it, it swells, falls into a powder, and gives out great heat. This last operation is called slacking the lime. The water combining with the lime becomes solid, and the heat is occasioned by its changing from a fluid to a solid state, for in doing this it parts with some of its caloric. The uses of lime are numeroi s and important. It is formed into mortar, the cement used in building. The lime being slacked, is made into a paste by tempering it with water ; to this is added sand, and some- times chopped hairs; as it dries, it becomes solid, hard, and durable. Examples have been known of buildings a thousand years old, in which the mortar is as hard as the stones which it unites. Lime is used as a manure to loosen soils which are too tenacious, and to render them LIME. 175 more friable and capable of receiving vegetable fibres ; it also hastens the dissolution and putre- faction of animal and vegetable substances of which mould is chiefly composed, and gives it the power of acquiring and retaining moisture, so necessary to the growth of vegetables. Lime is also employed in the manufacture of sugar, to deprive it of a portion of its acid. Tanners use it in removing hairs from the hides, and cleansing them from fat and grease. Carbonate of Lime. Lime occurs most frequently combined with carbonic acid in different proportions. The generic term for these substances is Carbonate of Lime. They vary much in appearance, but all agree in the following properties; they readily yield to the knife ; neutralize acids, (the characteristic properties of each being destroyed ;) and have a weight two or three times greater than that of water. The most common carbonate of lime is lime- stone, it occurs in almost every country, and forms hills of some eminence ; it is very abun- dant in England ; it is used for making mortar, forming roads, &c. Different kinds of lime- stone are used in building, as Portland stone, Oolite. The former has been much employed in several of the principal buildings in London, as St. Paul's, the Monument, and some of the 176 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XLVI. bridges. Some limestones are soft, when first taken from the quarry, but become hard when long exposed to the air. Calcareous spar is the purest carbonate of lime, it occurs both amorphous and crystalized, is transparent, shows a double refraction, and takes the form of the rhombohedron, occurring, in eight hundred varieties of this figure. Car- bonate of lime is often found in stalactites : these are long pendulous masses deposited from water loaded with particles of carbonate of lime, which trickles through fissures in rocks, or crevices in the roofs of caverns, &c. the water evaporates and the particles of lime gradually harden ; drop succeeds drop, till a long irregular tube is suspended of a most grotesque appear- ance. When carbonate of lime occurs of a very close-grained texture, it is called marble : being susceptible of a high polish, it is much used for ornamental purposes, as chimney-pieces, pillars and statuary. Chalk is another carbonate of lime, not so generally occurring as limestone, but very abun- dant in the south-eastern counties of England, along which it stretches in a continued line. It forms hills of a moderate elevation, character- ized by their gentle slopes and rounded summits, arising from this substance being of too soft a nature to resist the action of the weather. There are two beds of chalk ; the upper one distin- guished by containing parallel horizontal layers LIME. 177 of flint, with many petrifactions ; and the lower by being destitute of both. Chalk is white, dull, friable, meagre to the touch, adheres to the tongue, is of an earthly fracture ; always amorphous, and opaque. Tt is usually dug from pits; but in some parts of Kent the workmen undermine the sides of the hill, then dig a trench which is filled with water ; this soaking in, loosens the masses, which consequently fall. Most of the uses of chalk are nearly the same as those of limestone ; when freed from its coarser particles, it forms whiting. Water impregnated with calcareous sub- stances, is occasionally deposited on vegetables, clothing them with a stony coat ; this incrusta- tion is called Tufa. Sulphate of Lime. Gypsum is a sulphate of lime : it is much softer than marble, and more easily worked ; it is sometimes of a beautiful transparent whiteness, when it is called alabaster, and is made into vases and other ornaments. The gypsum, which is very abundant in the neighbourhood of Paris, is of a yellowish colour. When heated it pul- verizes, and water poured over it, is quickly absorbed, forming a paste which dries and hardens very rapidly. This is the Plaster of Paris so much used for casts, statues, Sec. N 178 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XLVII. When mixed with a glutinous substance, it forms stucco and plaster. When gypsum occurs crystallized it is called iielenite. Fluate of Lime. Lime combined with fluoric acid is called Fluate of Lime, or Fluor. It is very abundant in Derbyshire. It is formed into very beautiful ornaments, and is much used in the smelting of the ores of copper. LESSON XLVII. SILICA. A large number of the rocks with which the earth abounds, and a great proportion of com- pound earthy substances and minerals, have silex for their chief ingredient. It seems to form the solid basis of the crust of the globe, giving firmness and durability to the mountains, by which they have resisted the various revolu- tions that the earth has undergone. It is found in its greatest purity in rock-crystal and quartz. It is the basis of almost all the mineral sub- stances, which are sufficiently hard to strike fire with steel. These substances are called silicious, SILICA. 179 from the latin silex, a flint, because flint is almost entirely composed of silicious earth. Silex forms a large portion of granite, and enters in considerable proportion into the composition of slate ; it is also the substance which constitutes sand, and generally the shingle of the sea-shore. It is very hard, striking fire with steel, and scratching glass ; it has neither taste nor smell ; when perfectly pure, ( in which state it is, how- ever, never found in nature ) it is infusible, but when heated with an alkali, it unites with it, melts, and forms glass. In consequence of this property, silica has also been called verifiable earth, from vitrum, the latin for glass. It is not affected by any of the acids except the fluoric. Common sand is a granulated silex, generally of a white, red, or yellow colour. In the torrid regions of Africa and Asia, there are immense tracts of desert covered only with sand so fine and dry as to be moveable with the wind, and forming into waves like those of the sea. The wind sweeping the sand from the surface con- tinually, the successive waves form mountains of sand. These are incessantly shifting, and often overwhelm the travelling caravans. Sand is of great utility. It enters into the composi- tion of mortar. It produces the vitrification of glass and porcelain. In agriculture, it is valued as a manure ; it gives lightness to clayish and heavy soils, and assists in the work of filtration. Sandstone is formed of grains of silex cemented N 2 180 FIFTH SERIES.— LESSON XLVIII. together, producing a solid rock, though often of a very friable nature. Common flint contains of silica ninety-seven parts in one hundred. It is generally of a greyish colour, approaching often to black ; it is opaque, but translucent at its edges. It strikes fire by collision, and is on this account used in gun- locks. From its being one of the hardest sub- stances in nature, it is often taken as an emblem of firmness or obduracy. It is found principally Jn beds or strata, in chalk formations. It is used in the manufacture of glass and porcelain, in the construction of buildings and walls, and it also forms excellent roads. LESSON XLVIII. ALUMINE OR ARGIL. This substance obtained the name of Alumine, from its forming the base of common alum, and argil, 1 on account of its being the constituent of all clays, which are therefore termed argilla- ceous earths. Their distinguishing qualities are, that they have an earthy texture, give out a peculiar odour when breathed upon, which has been thence called the argillaceous odour : they 1 Argil, from Latin Argil la, clay. ALUMINE OR ARGIL. 181 adhere to the tongue : are never found crystal, lized, but sometimes slaty : are generally opaque, and their weight is about twice as great as that of water. When tempered with water, most argillaceous substances become soft, tenacious, and plastic ; 1 but shrink and harden by the application of heat. Alumine is never found pure in nature, it is considered to be the most plentiful earth next to silex. Common clay is a nearly equal admixture or alumine and silex : it is found in most coun_ tries, and is very valuable in various arts ; for these it is peculiarly fitted, as it may be moulded into any form, which it retains unchanged after exposure to heat. The beds of lakes, ponds, and springs, are almost entirely of clay ; instead ©fallowing the filtration of water, as sand does, it forms an impenetrable bottom, and by this means water is accumulated in the caverns of the earth, producing those natural reservoirs? whence springs issue and spout out at the surface* Clayey soils, in consequence of their absorbing and retaining moisture, are heavy and sticky. Clay is often used by the poorest classes of society, in forming their cottages. Loam is an argillaceous substance, containing a great pro- portion of sand, and is generally found upon a bed of sand. It is the substance of which bricks and tiles are constructed ; when well 1 Plastic, from TrXacrir eiv (pkss eiri) to form. 182 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XLVIII. baked in a kiln, or in the sun, it becomes very hard and durable. A proof of this is furnished in the existence at the present day of those mighty Egyptian Pyramids, which many sup- pose to have been the work of the Israelites in their bondage. Porcelain Clay is that employed in our china manufactories ; it absorbs moisture rapidly, and becomes very tenacious when kneaded. It is distinguished from other clays by the fineness of its texture, its friability and meagre touch. A coarser kind called Potter's Clay, is used in making common earthenware. Another description of clay, of a plastic nature, is called Pipe Clay from its being used in the manufacture of pipes: it is cast into a cylindrical mould, a wire being afterwards run through it to form the hollow through which the fumes of the tobacco are inhaled ; when baked it becomes hard and white. This clay is also used in extracting grease out of different sub- stances. Fuller s earth is another argillaceous substance similarly employed. The soil or mould which covers our fields and gardens, contain more or less of these three substances, alumine, silica, and lime. These occur in very different proportions; a mix- ture of all forms the best soil, each correcting and keeping within their due proportion the o^alities of the other ; thus in a clayey soil, QUESTIONS ON THE EARTHS. 183 filtration is carried on by means of sand, while clay on the other hand gives consistency to a sandy soil, and lime loosens the texture of heavy lands, and corrects the coldness occasioned by their retaining water. The fertilizing pro- perty of our soils, however, greatly depends upon the admixture of decayed animal and vegetable matter. QUESTIONS ON THE EARTHS. LIME. 1. Why is lime never found pure in nature ? 2. What name is given to the substances containing lime, and from what is the name derived? *3. Name the various minerals of which lime forms a principal part. 4. From what substance is pure lime gene- rally procured ? 5. Describe the process. 6. What is the operation of slaking lime, and the effect produced ? 184 QUESTIONS ON THE EARTHS. 7. Name the different uses of lime, with the properties that fit it for those uses. 8. What is a carbonate of lime ? 9. Mention the different carbonates of- lime. 10. What qualities do they all possess? 11. Describe calcareous spar. 12. What are stalactites ? describe their for- mation. 13. What is marble, and how used ? 14. Describe chalk, its situation, qualities, and appearances. 15. What is calcareous tufa ? 16. Name the limestones used in building. 17. What is gypsum ? its qualities and uses ? SILICA. 1. In what minerals is silica found in the greatest purity ? 2. Why was it called silica ? 3. What are the earths called that contain silica? 4. What other name is sometimes given to them, and why 5. W^hat are the distinguishing qualities of silicious earths? 6. What are their chief uses ? 7. What is sand ? 8. Where does it abound, and to what QUESTIONS ON THE EARTHS. 185 misfortune are those liable who travel in the countries where it is abounds? 9. Describe common flint, and name its uses. 10. In what geological situation is it found ? ALUMINE OR ARGIL. 1. Why is clay called argil ? why alumine ? 2. What are the distinguishing qualities of alumine ? 3. What qualities render it so useful in the arts ? 4. Name the different argillaceous earths. 5. Name their various uses. 6. What is loam, its situation and uses ? 7. How is porcelain clay distinguished ? 8. What clay is used for the manufacture of common earthenware, and how does it ditfer from porcelain clay ? 9. What clay is used in the manufacture of pipes, and how are they made ? 10. What clays are used for extracting grease ? 11. Why are clays used for the bottoms of lakes, canals, &c. 12. What kind of soil does clay form ? 186 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XLIX. LESSON XLIX. COAL. Coal may be considered as a mineral, both from its subterraneous situation, and the qualities which it possesses; many circumstances, how- ever, justify the now prevalent opinion that it is of vegetable origin ; the following are perhaps the most convincing. Carbon, which is the chief constituent of all vegetable matter, particularly wood, composes three-fourths of this substance. Coal is also found in the various stages of mine- ralization. Sometimes it possesses a completely fibrous texture and ligneous appearance, even the knots of wood being discernible, whilst the same bed produces specimens of perfect mineral coal. That which preserves most distinctly the character of wood is found at Bovey near Exeter. In Ireland a standing forest has been discovered, at the depth of one hundred feet below the soil. To this we may add the inflam- mability of this substance ; the numerous vege- table remains and impressions that accompany it ; and that it has never been discovered above the line to which vegetation reaches. Coal is of a black colour, bright, and fre- quently irridescent ; the structure is slaty ; it COAL. 187 occurs always amorphous ; it is very combusti- ble, a quality which few minerals possess. The places from whence it is taken, are called coal mines ; they abound in many parts of England, and have mainly contributed to the wealth of our country. Both the persons employed in the mines, and the vessels which transport the coals, are called colliers ; the place where the trade is car- ried on a colliery. The access to coal mines is generally through a narrow, perpendicular tunnel, called a shaft, up which the workmen and coals are drawn by machinery. The mines at White- haven are some of the most extraordinary in the world. The principal entrance is by an opening at the bottom of a hill through a long sloping passage, which is hewn in the rock, and leads to the lowest vein or bed of coal : the descent is chiefly through spacious galleries intersecting each other, formed by the excavation of the coal, large pillars of which are left to support the ponderous roof. These mines are very deep, and are extended under the bed of the sea, even to where the depth of the water is sufficiently great to admit ships of burden. In these mines there are three strata of coal, which lie con- siderably apart from one another, and are made to communicate by pits. Miners are frequently impeded in their progress by veins of hard rocks called dykes, and the coal is seldom found in a direct line on the other side of them : to ascertain its precise situation is often a work 188 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON XLIX. of considerable labour and expenee. Coal is generally situated at the foot of mountains, and in hollows which vary much in extent; it rarely lies much above the level of the sea. Several dangers attend the labours of miners ; the greatest is that arising from fire damp ; which is occasioned by the hydrogen gas or inflammable air produced in the mine, and which, when mixed with atmospheric air, explodes with great violence if brought into contact with any lighted substance. To avoid this danger, safety lamps are used, which were invented by Sir Humphrey Davy. They are of a very simple construction, consisting of wire gauze, so closely interwoven, that gas of sufficient quantity to cause ignition cannot enter them. Another danger arises from the formation of car- bonic acid gas or fixed air, which being hea- vier than the common air, occupies the lower part of the mines, and occasions death by suffocation. Coal is used to raise the temperature of rooms, to cook food, to supply the fuel for manufac- tories, (particularly where steam is required) and in the working of metals. It is one of the substances from which gas is procured : when this has been extracted from the coal, the residue is called coke, which is employed where intense heat is requisite. GRANITE. 189 LESSOX L. GRANITE. Granite is a compound rock, formed by an aggregation of the grains of quartz, felspar, and mica. The proportions in which these compo- nent parts occur vary much. Felspar is the predominating, and mica is the least consider- able of these ingredients. The grains are also of different magnitudes ; when they are large, the granite is of a very coarse texture; but sometimes they are so small, as almost to give the appearance of an uniform mass. These circumstances occasion a great variety in the character of granite. When horneblende occurs in the place of mica, the rock is called sienite. Some felspar is liable to decomposition, and when this is the prevailing substance in the rocks, they yield to the effects of the weather, and become more or less of a rounded form : but when the granite is hard and close grained, which is more usually the case, they rise in bold prominent peaks, giving grandeur and boldness to the scenery. Granite is found in most countries where there are mountains of any con- siderable elevation. It forms the lofty Grampian hills in Scotland; and the Logan or rocking- 190 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON LI. stones of Cornwall are immense blocks of this material. Granite is valuable on account of its great hardness and durability ; it is used for mill-stones, troughs, and steps; the streets of London are paved with it, and it is employed in architecture. Waterloo bridge, and the new London bridge, are constructed of granite. LESSON LI. SALT. Salt is a mineral substance, beautifully white, sparkling, and crystalline ; it is solluble, fusible, granulous, and of a peculiar flavour called saline. There are several varieties of this useful mineral, which are distinguished by the different situations in which they are found. The principal are sea- salt called also bay-salt, which is produced from the ocean ; the best comes from Portugal : salt drawn from brine springs : and rock-salt, which is dug out of the earth. Amongst the most extensive salt mines, hitherto discovered, are those at Wieliska, a picturesque little town situated on the sides of a gentle valley, about eight miles from Cracow, formerly the chief city of Poland. The traveller who visits these subter- raneous deposits of salt, being furnished with a guide and two lamp-bearers, is let down a shaft, SALT. 191 of about 150 feet, by a rope. At the depth of 90 feet, he arrives at the rock of pure salt of a dingy soot colour, here and there glistening by the light of the lamps. The swing is now abandoned, and the ear is assailed by the busy sound of spades, mattocks, and wheelbarrows, in every direction. This is the first floor of a large cavern, containing in different parts a stable for twenty horses, quantities of salt, some in bare masses, some in casks ready to be hoisted to the surface, stores of implements for the miners, &c. This excavation is about 100 feet long and 80 broad, (beside the stable) ; and about 20 feet high. From hence a long gallery 12 feet high by 8 broad, leads toward the interior of the mine, where lateral avenues branch off in various directions, each named after some Austrian prince or princess, and resemble more in appearance, the avenues of some subterraneous palace, than the passages of a mine. A flight of steps conducts down another 100 feet to the second floor ; in this descent the bed of salt is interrupted by a narrow stratum of pure clay, sometimes by a mixture of salt and the same earth ; these strata are in places very curiously curved, as though a rolling wave had been arrested in its course, and preserved in its original form. The miners are here found at work, some hewing pillars of salt from the rock, some cutting them into masses for home consumption, and some stowing the masses in 192 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON LI. barrels for exportation. The cavern on this floor is rather smaller than the first, it con- sists of one spacious hall, and has no pillar to support the roof. Proceeding on this subterraneous journey, the traveller arrives at a wooden platform, from whence he looks down upon an abyss, which the simple lights of the conductors fail to illu- minate, though the spars of the mineral reflecting the rays of light, produce a novel and beautiful effect. When princes or other great personages visit the mines, a chandelier of crystal salt, which hangs in the centre, is furnished with 150 lights, which display a stupendous cavern, having the appearance of a castle in ruins ; at the bottom are some rows of seats rising like the benches of a theatre, opposite to which is an orchestra; here, on such occasions, a small band play a few airs of slow and simple music, which has a most singular effect in harmony with the surrounding scene. Long galleries and flights of steps, all spacious enough to allow free course to the fresh air, lead deeper and deeper in the saline rock ; the scene now and then varies by a cavern full of workmen, and some along the galleries wheeling their little carts full of salt, each with its lamp in front. On the fourth floor there is a little subterraneous lake, about 80 feet long and 40 broad, over which illustrious personages are ferried on rafts of fir logs, lighted by numerous flambeaux. Here terminates the SALT. 193 bed of green salt, the most common sort and easiest to be cut. That next to it is called spica salt, which is harder and more close grained, and next succeeds a white and finer grained variety. This part of the mine is 700 feet below the surface of the earth ; 300 feet beneath this lies the finest crystal salt, which is reached by long flights of steps and inclined planes. The cavern in which it is found is sufficiently spa- cious for a regiment of soldiers to perform their manoeuvres in it. This is the deepest part of the mine, the air is quite pure, rather cooler than that of the open day, but much warmer than it is about half-way down. The return is through a different series of corridors and caverns. On the third floor is a simple tomb of salt, with the name of the late Emperor of Austria in- scribed with letters of wood neatly gilt. On the second floor is a large saloon with all the implements of mining, and the mode of letting them down with men and horses exhibited in transparency. On the first is a chapel present- ing an altar, statue of the Virgin, crucifix, and figures of Casimir I. and his wife, all cut out of the solid salt ; before the chapel is a small pulpit in the gothic style. To visit the whole of this extraordinary and extensive mine, with all its galleries and caverns, no less a distance than 300 miles must be traversed. The salt used in England is chiefly obtained from the sea, or salt brine springs. The saline o 194 FIFTH SERIES — LESSON LII. water is admitted into open shallow trenches, and being exposed to the sun, or artificial heat, the water is evaporated, and the salt is left in a crystalline state. The conservative properties of salt render it invaluable for household purposes ; and its sti- mulating flavour, for removing the insipidity of food. When fused, it is used in glazing pottery. It is sometimes used as a manure. It was employed in all the Jewish ceremonies, being emblematical of purity and incorrupti- bility. Our blessed Lord calls his disciples the salt of the earth ; thereby signifying to them, that having by divine grace their own hearts purified, they are to exercise by precept and example, a purifying influence on the hearts of others. LESSON LII. SLATE. Slate is a mineral substance ; it is never found crystallized, but generally of a foliated struc- ture; it is either of a grey, blueish, or blackish colour ; and is opaque, dull, and brittle. It consists chiefly of alumine, with a small quantity of silex. It is dug out of quarries ; when first taken from them, it is 'comparatively soft, but becomes hard by exposure to the air. It is SLATE. 195 used for writing, for whetstones, and for roofing houses. In order to ascertain its fitness for the latter purpose, it is weighed as soon as it is excavated ; it is then put into water for some days; if after being well dried it is found to have increased in weight, it is laid aside as un- suitable for the purpose, the trial having proved that it was porous. Such slate would not only allow water to pass through it and so destroy the wood-work of buildings, but it would also be liable to be covered with lichens and moss, in consequence of the moisture which it retains. If its quality is ascertained to be good, it is split into thin plates for roofing. The tiles are fast- ened to the rafters by pegs driven through holes which have been previously made in them ; the edge of one is laid over the other in the same manner as the scales of fishes. Slate which is dark-coloured, compact, and solid, is the best adapted for writing upon. In order to prepare the slate for this purpose, it is rendered smooth with an iron instrument, and it is then ground with sandstone, and slightly polished. That which is softer, and more friable, is used for pencils, o 2 196 FIFTH SERIES.— LESSON LIU. LESSON LIII. CORAL. Corals are the secretions made by polype insects, inhabiting the deep ; they sometimes assume the forms of branches of the most beau- tiful appearance ; sometimes they resemble beads strung- in a necklace, whilst others present a more consolidated mass ; but all are perforated with pores more or less minute, which are the habitations of the little architects. Among the various phenomena of the natural world, there are perhaps none more calculated to excite astonishment and admiration, than the vast coral reefs that rise up from the deep, and at times even constitute islands. They are pro- duced from a calcareous matter which exudes from the coral worm, and hardening, forms at once their habitation and their mausoleum. This creature is of the class of zoophytes, the lowest grade of animal life, the link between the animal and the vegetable kingdom. They work only under water, so that the coral reefs never rise above the level of the sea ; and when the tide retires the rock appears dry and compact, rugged and perforated ; but when the return- ing waters wash its sides, a most interesting spectacle of active life is presented, countless CORAL. 197 myriads of various shapes and colours protrude themselves from the orifices, and the whole edifice seems teeming with life and animation. The coral ceases to grow in height when the worm is no longer exposed to the washing of the sea ; the work is then commenced at the sides, and other parts rise in succession till they reach the same height, and form a level surface at the top, with steep precipitous sides. In this manner, and by such insignificant agents, atom deposited upon atom, the solid rock is at length produced ; upon this the sea deposits sand, mud, and decayed sea-weed ; these prepare for mosses and lichens, which in their turn produce a soil for more perfect vegetation ; till at last the island thus formed, becomes a fit residence for man. As these rocks are constructed beneath the surface of the sea, they present no beacon to warn the mariner of their existence, and thus render navigation in those seas in which they abound, exceedingly dangerous. 198 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON LIV. LESSON LTV. ON THE SENSES. The children having already been exercised in determining by which of the senses they dis- cover the presence of any quality, may now be led to consider more fully the senses themselves. The first two lessons are drawn out for the use of the teacher ; the substance only of the others is given. Teacher. Do you understand how you gained the knowledge of various qualities ? Children. By our senses. Teacher. How do you know when a thing is red or blue ? Children. By sight. Teacher. If you were blind, could you form a correct idea of colour ? Is there any other means of gaining this knowledge ? Children. No. -Teacher. True; and to ascertain this point, a blind person was once questioned as to what notion he had of scarlet : he said he thought that it must be like the sound of a trumpet. It is obvious he had no correct idea of a quality ON THE SENSES. 199 discoverable by the sight, and he could only compare it with one that he had acquired through the medium of another sense. Can you tell me the reason why persons born deaf cannot speak ? Children. They cannot imitate sounds, because they never heard any. Teacher. Since then deaf persons have no correct ideas of sound, nor blind persons of colour, how did we acquire them ? Children. By means of the senses of seeing and hearing. Teacher. How then do you suppose our minds become stored with ideas ? Children. By the exercise of our senses. 1 Teacher. Now if you have once had the idea of a dog formed in your mind, by seeing such an animal, when a dog is mentioned you can recal the idea, and fancy one immediately, as if it were present ; your mind will also perform the same operation when a quality is spoken of, which you had previously seen in some object. Again, if you see a dog unlike any you have observed before, you compare it with the species with which you are acquainted, and mark the difference between them. If I say that I have some green paper, cannot you immediately imagine the colour of which I speak ? Ghildren. Yes. 1 It is probable that children would not at once arrive at the conclusion ; the Teacher must in that case lead them to it by easy questions. 200 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON LV. Teacher. Did you then exercise your sight ? Children. No. Teacher. How then could you have the idea of green ? Children. We remembered it. Teacher. By what means did you first obtain the idea ? Children. By seeing something green. Teacher. What power of the mind do you exercise in recalling an idea ? Children. Our memory. LESSON LV. FEELING OR TOUCH. Teacher. What part of your body is the organ of touch ? Children. It seems all over our body. Teacher. Do you not find some parts that do not possess the sense of feeling ? Children. Yes : our hairs, nails, teeth. Teacher. And in other animals what parts are found destitute of sensation ? Children . The hoofs, horns, claws, feathers, wool, hair, &c. Teacher. What word would you use to express the absence of sensation ? What syllable prefixed to a word gives it a negative meaning ? FEELING OR TOUCH. 201 Children. In. Teacher. Well, what word will express the absence of sensation? Children. Insensibility. Teacher. The parts then that you have named are insensible, and with the exception of these, the sense of feeling exists every where throughout the body : but what part of it is particularly adapted by its form, to become the organ of this sense ? Children. The hand. Teacher. Tell me what qualities we can discover in objects by this sense? Children. That they are hard, soft, rough, smooth, long, short, sharp, blunt, round, square, cylindrical, conical, heavy, light, fluid, liquid, dry, wet, hot, cold, &c. Teacher. By what general term would you express such qualities as round, square, conical, &c? Children. By shape. Teacher. By what general term would you express such qualities as large, small, &c. ? Children. By size. Teacher. By what general term would you express such qualities as rough, smooth, &c? Children. By kind of surface. Teacher. By what general term would you express such qualities as hard, soft, fluid, tenacious, &c? 202 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON LV. Children. By kind of substance. Teacher. By what general term would you express such qualities as heavy, light, &c. Children. By weight. Teacher. Now arrange the qualities which you discover by your Feeling, under five general heads, i. e. shape, size, kind of surface , kind of substance, weight. The children having performed this exercise, the Teacher may mention the following facts. Teacher. The quickness and accuracy of the sense of Feeling is, we find, much increased by exercise, as is exemplified in blind persons, the defect of whose sight is frequently compen- sated in a great measure, by an exquisite sen- sitiveness of touch. Bats also appear to possess this sense in a remarkable degree. They have been observed, even after the loss of sight, and with their ears and nostrils stopped up, to fly through intricate windings and passages, without striking against the walls, and also to avoid lines and cords placed in their way. The expanded membrane that serves them for wings is probably the seat of this delicate sense of feeling, which so admirably fits them for their nocturnal and dark abodes. The palpi or feelers of insects possess the same quality very acutely, and this enables them to explore the surfaces of bodies in search of food, and warns them also of the approach of danger. SIGHT. 203 The class should be required at the con- clusion of the lesson, to draw up some account of this sense, mentioning where it resides, what qualities fall within its cognizance, and to re- capitulate any incidental information received during the lesson. LESSON LVI. SIGHT. The eyes are the organs of sight, and are beautifully adapted for the office they have to perform. They are so constructed as to allow us to see things near, or at a distance ; to con- fine ourselves to the inspection of one object, or to take in at once a large sphere of vision. The part of the eye which admits the light, may be expanded or contracted, according as the rays are more or less powerful. This fact is remark- ably exemplified in the eyes of the cat and of the owl. Indeed nothing affords a more striking proof of the kind providence of God than the beautiful adaptation of the eyes of animals to their peculiar modes of life ; those of moles, fishes, and birds, are remarkable illustrations of this fact. 1 1 The Teacher should here fully explain to the class the circumstances referred to, and give other similar instances. 204 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON LVII. Of all the senses, that of sight is in most frequent and continual exercise. It fills the mind with the greatest variety of ideas, which it gathers not only from the objects of nature and of art, but from the writings of the wise and good of all ages. The qualities we discover by this sense are, transparent, semi-transparent, translucent, opaque, glimmering, bright, dark, sparkling, dull ; and the various modifications of colour, size, and shape. Many may be ascertained either by touch or sight ; as those of size, form, kind of surface, and substance. LESSON LVII. HEARING. The ears are the organs of this sense. In many animals the ear has externally the form of a trumpet, and is well adapted for gather- ing sound and bringing it to a focus; in man it contains many convolutions and chan- nels which receive the vibrations of air in every direction, and convey them to the part called the drum, which is the actual seat of this sense. The formation of the ears of animals is beau- tifully accommodated to their peculiar habits HEARING. 205 of life. In beasts of prey the trumpet part is inclined forwards, easily to catch the sounds of those they are pursuing. But animals whose chief means of protection is flight, have these organs turned backwards, that they may be readily apprized of the approach of their enemies. The ears are the medium through which all sensations of sound reach the mind, without them we should be deprived of the advantages of verbal instruction, the pleasures of conver- sation, and the charms of music. The motion of the parts of a body, or the collision of one body against another, occasions a vibration in the air, which is similar to the effect produced on water when a stone is thrown into it. Circle succeeds circle, till the power of motion is exhausted : and just as any light substance within the influence of these undu- lations is agitated by them, so when our ear is within reach of these vibrations of air, the sensation of sound is produced. 1 The chirping noise of the cricket is occasioned simply by the constant friction of a little membrane against its wings. When two bodies are rubbed or struck together, we are in many cases able to deter- mine by the sounds emitted, the nature of the 1 This account may appear, at first sight, above the comprehension of children ; a class, however, which had gone through the preceding exercises, was found fully capable of understanding it. 206 FIFTH SERIES. — LESSON LVIII. substances brought into contact. Very different sounds are occasioned by the collision of metals and that of wood ; and the sound produced from hollow bodies is very unlike that result- ing from solid ones. There are various kinds of sounds : as shrill, deep, grating, harsh, loud, soft, harmonious, sweet. Animals produce dif- ferent sounds. The cat mews, the dog barks, the lion roars, the ass brays, the cow lows, the horse neighs, the rook caws, the goose cackles, the cock crows, the fly buzzes, the bee hums. Man speaks, laughs, cries, shouts, groans, whistles, sings. LESSON LVIII. SMELL. The nose is the organ of this sense ; its cavities are lined with a thin membrane sup- plied with nerves connected with a princi- pal one, which is essential to the perception of smell. By means of this sense, we derive all our ideas of odour. Though not so important to man as the other senses, yet it adds much to his pleasure ; and to many animals it is essen- tial, directing them in the search of their food. TASTE. 207 The scent of dogs is peculiarly fine, and on this account they are employed in the chase. Odour is produced by exceedingly small particles called effluvia, which escape from odorous bodies ; these diffuse themselves in the atmosphere, and whenever they reach the ol- factory nerves, they occasion the sensation of smell. Heat promotes the escape of these particles, which are of a volatile nature ; hence when the sun shines brightly, the flowers are most fragrant. LESSON LIX. TASTE. The mouth is the organ of taste. The skin within the mouth is finer and more delicate than that of the rest of the body, it is supplied with a great number of blood vessels, and covered with innumerable papillae. Sapid bodies, how- ever, before they excite the sensation of taste, require to be moistened by the saliva. In gra- minivorous animals, the papillae are defended from the action of the stiff bristles of grass and corn, by a strong skin, which being perforated, allows the dissolved juice to reach the seat of taste. The principal qualities discoverable by 208 FIFTH SERIES.— LESSON LIX. the taste are bitter, sweet, acid, pungent, acrid, luscious. There are many others which derive their names from the substances in which they exist. Many animals have some one of the senses in great perfection, but in none are they all found in the same degree as in man. VOCABULARY. Aromatic, derived from the greek dgw/j-a (aroma) a spice : having a pungent spicy smell. Adhesive, derived from the latin adhser ere, to stick to : composed of particles that not only unite together, but attach themselves to other substances ; thus gum, when placed between two pieces of paper, joins itself to each, and causes an union between the two. Affinity, derived from the latin affin is, related : the tendency which some bodies have to unite with others. Absorbent, derived from the latin absorb ere, to suck up : sucking up liquids. An absorbent substance must be also porous, for if there were no pores, the liquid could not enter the substance. Aggregation, derived from latin aggreg are, to collect together in one flock. A collection of things brought together in one. Argillaceous, derived from the latin argilla, clay ; partaking of the nature of clay, or consisting prin- cipally of clay. P 210 VOCABULARY. Alloy t an inferior metal mixed with one more precious : or the compound of two metals. Astringent, derived from the latin ad, to ; and string ere, to bind : binding, contracting. Amorphous, derived from the greek a (a) not, and /xoQcp/j. (morphe) a form : without any regular form. Acidulated, derived from the latin acid ulus, slightly acid : having been made slightly acid. Acrid, from the latin acri s sharp : hot, or sharp to the taste. Anneal, to heat glass after it is blown, that it may not break. Amalgam the combination of mercury with any other metallic substance. Aqua fortis, signifies literally strong water, but is applied to a weak nitric acid. Alkali, a substance which uniting with acids, neutral- izes their acidity , it derives its name from a plant called kali, from the ashes of which alkaline sub • stances are procured. Atmosphere, derived from the Greek drfios (atmos) vapour, and acpaiga (sphaira) a globe or sphere : the air that surrounds our globe, composed of oxygen and nitrogen. Brittle, easily broken ; hard substances only are brittle. Congeal, derived from the latin con, together ; and gel u cold ; to turn from a liquid into a solid state from the influence of cold. Circle, a surface bounded by a curved line, which is equally distant at every point from the centre. Circular, in the form of a circle. Cone, a solid bounded by a flat circular surface called the base, and a curved surface tapering to a point called the apex. VOCABULARY. 211 Conical, having the form of a cone. Calcined, burnt in the fire and reduced to a calx, or friable substance. Culinary, derived from the latin culina, a kitchen ; belonging to the kitchen. Chalybeate, derived from the Greek x aKv} \' (chaly bs) iron : impregnated with iron or steel. Corrosive, derived from the latin rod ere to gnaw : having the power of eating away anything. Contagion, derived from the latin con, together and, tang ere, to touch : something proceeding from body to body, by which disease is communicated. Concave, the inner curve of a hollow sphere. Convex, the outer curve of a sphere. Conservative, derived from the latin con, together, and serv are to keep : having the power of pre- serving or preventing decay. Caustic, derived from the greek KavcrriKos (caustic) burning : having the power to destroy the texture of parts by burning or eating them away. Cohere, derived from the latin co, together, and haer ere, to stick : to stick together. Caloric, derived from the latin cal or, heat ; heat. Collision, derived from the latin collis us, struck together : the act of striking two bodies together. Compact, firm, solid, close. Carbon, derived from latin carbo, charcoal : the pure inflammable part of charcoal. Carbonic acid, carbon united with a certain portion of oxygen. Calcareous, derived from the latin calx, lime : consist- ing principally of lime. Component part, derived from the latin con, together, and pon ere to place : a part forming with others a compound body. P 2 212 VOCABULARY. Cylinder, derived from the greek kvXivZw (kylindo) I roll : a solid bounded by one curved surface and two flat ends. Cylindrical, having the form of a cylinder. Ductile, derived from the latin due tilts, capable of being drawn out : capable of being drawn out in length* Decomposition, the separation of the particles of a compound body. Dilatable, derived from the latin dilat are, to extend : capable of being expanded. Dense, close, thick : the opposite to rare. Diluted, derived from the latin dilu ere, to wash : having been made thinner or weaker. Economical, derived from the greek oacovo/Aia (oikono- mia) household management ; relating to the man- agement of a family. Elementary, not compounded, having but one con- stituent part or element. Emollient, derived from the latin moll is, soft ; having the power to soften. Exported, derived from the latin ex, out, and port are to carry : carried out of the country. Exotic, derived from the greek €|a> (exo) without : not produced in our country ; particularly applied to plants. Evaporate, derived from the latin e, out from, and vapor, vapour: to pass off in a vapour. Excrescence, derived from the latin ex, out, and cresc ere, to grow : something growing out of another body, not useful to it, and contrary to the common order of production. Exhale, derived from the latin ex, out, and hal are to breathe : to send out vapours or fumes. Elastic, having the power, when bent or stretched, of returning to its original position. VOCABULARY. 213 Effervescent, derived from the latin effervesc ere, to boil up : bubbling up from internal commotion. Edible, or eatable, derived from the latin ed ere, to eat : fit for food. Fragrant, having a sweet scent. Fluid, derived from the latin flu ere, to flow ; having parts easily separable, and flowing about. Fusible, melting in fire. Friable, easily crumbling. Foliated, derived from the latin foli um, a leaf : com- posed of leaves, or laminae. Fracture, derived from the latin fract us, broken : the appearance of a mineral when broken. Fragile, derived from the latin frang ere, to break : easily broken or injured. Flexible, derived from the latin flex us, bent ; easily bent. Friction, derived from the latin fric are, to rub ; the act of rubbing two bodies together. Farinaceous, derived from the latin farina, flour : mealy, of the nature of flour. Filtration, derived from the latin filtr um, a colander : the process of passing a liquid through the inter- stices of another body. Fermentation, derived from the latin ferment um, leaven : internal commotion in the particles of a body ; plants undergo fermentation when they de- compose. Glutinous, derived from the latin gluten, glue : tena- cious, viscid. Globule, derived from the latin glob ulus, a small globe : a small globe or sphere. Graminivorous, derived from the latin gramen, grass, and vor are, to eat : feeding on grass. Granulous, derived from the latin granul um, a little 214 VOCABULARY. grain : separating into small particles or grains, as sand. Generic, derived from the latin gener a, kinds : re- lating to a genus, or kind of things. Graduated, derived from the latin gradu s, a step : marked by a regular increase of degrees. Horizon, derived from the greek dpigw (horizon) bounding : the line that bounds our view. Horizontal, in the same direction as the horizon. Hermetically, so sealed as entirely to exclude the air. Hydrogen, derived from the greek vdccp (hydor) water : and yevvaew (gen naein) to produce : the lightest gas ; with a certain portion of oxygen it forms water. Iridescent, derived from the latin irid escere, to be- come like a rainbow : shining with the colours of the rainbow. Impalpable, derived from the latin in, not, and palp are, to feel : not to be perceived by touch. Imbricated, derived from imbric are, to cover with tiles : arranged in the manner of the tiles of a house. Imported, derived from the latin in, into, and port are, to carry : carried into a country. Impressible, derived from the latin in, and press, us, pressed : easily receiving and retaining an im- pression. Indigenous, derived from the latin indigena, a native : the natural production of the country : this term is applied to vegetables, as native is to animals. Insipid, derived from in, not, and sap ere, to savour : having little flavour. Incombustible, derived from in, not, and combust us. burned, not to be consumed by fire. Interstice, derived from the latin inter, between, and stit um, placed : small space between the different parts of a body. VOCABULARY. 215 Impregnated, filled with any quality or thing. Incision, derived from the latin incis us, cut in : a cut or wound made by a sharp instrument. Impervious, derived from the latin in, not, per, through, and via, a way presenting no passage ; a substance is impervious to a liquid when it presents no pore or passage by which it can enter. Ignited, derived from the latin igni s, fire : having been kindled or set on fire. Infusion, derived from in, into, and fusus, poured : a liquid in .which something has been steeped to draw out its properties. Liquid, properly signifies that which has been melted : anything which we drink, or which forms into drops. Air is a fluid. Water is both fluid and liquid : when we speak of it as a stream or current : it is properly called a fluid, but when we speak of it as passing from a congealed to a dissolved state, it should pro- perly be called a liquid. Lamina, a thin plate. Laminated, formed of thin plates or laminae. Lateral, derived from the latin latera, sides : at the side. Ligneous, derived from the latin lign um, wood : made of wood, or having a woody structure. Lubricous, derived from the latin lubric us, slip- pery : slippery, smooth. Layer, that which is spread over a substance. Magnifying, derived from the latin magn us, great, and fi eri, to be made : making things appear larger than they actually are. Malleable, derived from the latin malle us, a ham- mer : capable, when beaten, of great extension, without the particles being separated. Malefactor, derived from the latin male, badly, and factor, doer : a criminal, an evil doer. 216 VOCABULARY. Maturity, derived from the latin matur us, ripe : ripe, or having arrived at its most perfect state. Marine, derived from the latin mare, the sea : be- longing to the sea. Meagre, dry and harsh to the touch : a term applied to earthy minerals, as chalk. Metallic, composed of a metal, or of the nature of a metal. Native, derived from the latin nat us, born : growing naturally in a country. When applied to a metal, it means that it is not mixed with any other substance. Nutricious, derived from the latin nutri re, to nou- rish : containing much nourishment. Neutralize, derived from the latin neut er, neither : to destroy the distinguishing qualities of anything. The compound of an alkali and an acid has not the qualities of either, both being neutralized by their action upon each other. Nitrogen, a gas ; united in certain proportions with oxygen, it forms atmospheric air. Nitric acid, nitrogen, united with a certain propor- tion of oxygen. Nitrate, nitric acid united with another substance. Oxygen, derived from the greek 6£vs (oxys) acid, and yewaeiv (gen naein) to produce : a gas ; united in certain proportion with oxygen, it forms the air ; with hydrogen, water. Oxide, that which is united with oxygen. Odorous, derived from the latin odor, a smell, having a smell. Oval, derived from the latin ov um, an egg : having the form of an egg. Oleaginous, derived from the latin olea, oil : oily. Ore, a metal is called an ore when found united with another mineral substance. VOCABULARY. 217 Opaque, derived from the latin opac us, dark : dark, not admitting any light to pass through. Ponderous, derived from the latin pond us, a weight : heavy. Portable, derived from the latin port are, to carry : easy to carry. Polarity, the property of turning towards the poles. Pliable, derived from the french pli er, to fold : easily folded into plaits. A young twig is flexible, linen is pliable. Pulverable, derived from the latin pulv is, dust : capable of being reduced to a powder or dust. Perforated, derived from the latin perfor are, to bore through ; pierced with holes. Plastic, derived from the greek TrKacra ew (plass ein) to form : capable of being moulded into any form. Petrifaction, derived from the latin petra,a stone, and fac ere, to make : turned into stone. Parallel, derived from the greek napa (para) by the side of, and aXAyXwv (allelon) each other : running in the same direction with another thing, and always keeping at the same distance from it. Perfect, when applied to a metal signifies that it does not lose any of its weight by fusion. Porous, derived from the greek iropos (poros) a pass- age : full of small pores or holes. All bodies are more or less porous, but the quality is only attri- buted to those in which it is obvious. Pungent, derived from the latin pung ere, to prick : warm to the taste. Process, derived from the latin process us, a going- forward, a regular course by which anything is done. Perpendicular, derived from the latin perpendicul urn, a plumb-line ; in the same direction as a plumb- line hanging freely. 218 VOCABULARY. Pendulous, derived from the latin pend ere, to hang : hanging suspended. Quadrangular, derived from the latin qnatuor, four, and angul us, an angle : a form having four angles. Reflective, reflecting, or giving back an image ; this quality depends upon brightness. Reservoir, derived from the latin reserv are, to keep : a place where any thing is kept in store. Rarity, thinness as applied to fluids : the opposite to dense. Roasting, the process by which the volatile parts of a mineral are evaporated. Rhomb, derived from the greek pn/ifios (rhombos) a rhomb : a surface bounded by four equal straight lines — its opposite angles are equal, but not right angles. Rhombohedron, derived from the greek fro/xfios (rhom- bos) a rhomb, and 48pa (hedra) a base: a solid bounded by six rhombs, any one of which may be its base. Stratum, derived from the latin strat um, laid : a bed or layer. Supple, easily bent in any direction. Smelting, the process by which the pure metal is separated from the earthly particles with which it is combined in the ore. Silicious, derived from the latin sil ex, flint : consist- ing principally of silex or flint. Sea'etion, derived from the latin secret us, separated : that which is separated from any other substance. Tears are an animal secretion ; honey is a vegetable secretion. Soluble, derived from the latin solv ere, to loosen melting in a liquid. Solvent, having the power of dissolving things. VOCABULARY. 219 Solution, that which contains any thing dissolved. Sphere, derived from the greek crQaipa (sphaira) a globe or sphere : a solid bounded by one curved surface, which is equally distant in every part from the centre. Spherical, having the form of a sphere. Solid, rilling up space ; in this sense it is opposed to hollow. Solid, having particles adhering closely together ; in this sense it is opposed to fluid. Sonorous, derived from the latin son us, a sound : capable of producing sound. Summit, derived from the latin summ us, highest : the top or highest part. Sapid, derived from the latin sap ere, to savour : having a flavour. Sparkling, bright in parts and not over the whole surface. Saturate, derived from the latin satur, full : to fill any-thing till it can receive no more. Semi-transparent, derived from the latin semi, half , trans, through ; and par ens, appearing ; presenting an imperfect passage to the rays of light so that objects do not appear clearly through. Transparent, derived from the latin trans, through ; and par ens, appearing : yielding a free passage to the rays of light, so that objects appear through. Translucent, derived from the latin trans, through ; and lux, light : yielding a partially obstructed passage to the rays of light, so that light only appears through. Tenacious, derived from the latin tenax, holding: having particles uniting firmly together. Gum being tenacious, the particles cannot easily be sepa- rated, and . on this account it acts as a cement ; 220 VOCABULARY. glue, being more tenacious, acts as a still stronger cement. Tubular, derived from the latin tubul us, a small tube : having the form of a hollow cylinder. Tough, capable of being bent or extended without breaking. Tartar, a hard substance deposited on the sides of a cask during the fermentation of wine. Tartaric acid, tartar and a certain portion of oxygen. Triangle, derived from the latin tres, three ; and angul us, an angle : a form that has three angles. Triangular, having the form of a triangle. Transmitted, derived from the latin trans, across, and mitt ere, to send : sent from one person or place to another. Vacuum, derived from the latin vacu us, empty ; space completely unoccupied. Velocity, derived from the latin velox, swift : speed, swiftness. Viscid, derived from the latin vise us, bird-lime : glu- tinous, tenacious. Vitrifiable, derived from the latin vitr um, glass, and fi eri, to be made : capable of being converted into Volatile, derived from the latin vol are, to fly : pass- ing or flying off naturally by evaporation. Unctuous, derived from the latin unct us, anointed : fat, clammy, oily. THE END. LATELY PUBLISHED, BY THE SAME AUTHOR, LESSONS ON SHELLS, AS GIVEN TO CHILDREN, Between the Ages of Eight and Ten, IN A PESTALOZZIAN SCHOOL, AT CHEAM, SURREY. Illustrated by Ten Plates drawn from Nature, Price 5s. 6d. CABINETS, CONTAINING THE SUBSTANCES REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK. £. S. d. Cabinets adapted to the First Three Series of Lessons 7 Cabinets adapted to the Remaining Series .110 Cabinets adapted to the Whole Course . , 1 15 Cabinets of Models for Teaching Fractions . 12 Cabinets of Shells, consisting of 120 Species, including Linnsean Genera . . . .330 Cabinets of Minerals, consisting of upwards of 100 carefully selected specimens, scien- tifically arranged according to Phillips . . 1 10 **# Larger Collections made to Order. Interesting Collections of Glass Models for facilitating the study of Geometry and Crys- talography, consisting of 15 secondary bodies, inclosing the primitive nucleus . . .220 The same in glass and Gilt . . . .250 The above may be had of W. 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